Brits claim Putin fell short of military goals on first day of Ukraine invasion: report

The United Kingdom's defense secretary is claiming that Russia's invasion of Ukraine his failing militarily during the initial push into the country.

"Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, said on Friday that the verified assessment of his country’s intelligence services was that Russian forces 'hadn’t achieved their goals so far' and had failed to meet any of their objectives in the first day of their invasion of Ukraine," The New York Times reported. "Mr. Wallace, speaking to the BBC on Friday morning, said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had so far failed in an attempt to take a key airport north of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Russian forces also lost approximately 450 troops and a significant number of tanks, and have so far not broken through the line of control in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, he said."

Wallace argued that Putin expected to be greeted warmly by Ukrainians.

“Putin had in his mind and in his articles and speeches that somehow Ukrainians were waiting to be liberated by the great czar, and that he would turn up in Ukraine and they would all cheer him,” he said said. “Of course, we all saw that’s not true.”

Wallace went on to reiterate that British forces would not engage Putin's forces.

“I said very clearly about a month ago that we are not going to be sending British troops to fight directly with Russian troops,” Wallace said.

Read the full report.