Pentagon chief says Ukraine "absolutely" can defeat Russia even without long-range strike authorisation

In an interview with Fox News, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Ukraine "absolutely" can defeat Russia even without permission to fire US missiles deep into Russia.

Here's What We Know

This month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to the US to present his "victory plan", a key provision of which was to lift restrictions on ATACMS and other US-provided long-range missiles to strike military targets in Russia.

The long-range missiles could have done a lot of damage to Russian aircraft, but pressure on the White House and other US politicians failed to secure permission.

Austin said that Russia has already moved its bomb-launching aircraft beyond the ATACMS range, 300 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

"Russia has already moved its aircraft beyond the range of ATACAMS. Ukraine has the ability to produce its own drones, they are very effective. We have seen them conducting operations 400 kilometres from the border, and even further," Lloyd Austin said.

Source: Fox News