Appearing on CNN's "New Day" with host Brianna Keilar, retired Admiral James Stavridis claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is under growing pressure as his forces encircle Kyiv and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with the prime ministers of three NATO-aligned countries.
According to the military expert, attempts to take the city of Kyiv will represent a formidable challenge for the advancing Russian army.
Discussing reports that Putin's invasion has led multiple European nations to ponder applying to NATO, Stavridis claimed that Putin may have made a fatal mistake.
"You mentioned those prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland going to Kyiv," host Keillar prompted. "Sounds like you did a little bit of a double-take or eyebrow raise as we did. I don't think that we can overstate how significant this is that they're going into this embattled city that's under curfew to meet with President Zelenskyy."
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"It really puts pressure on Vladimir Putin because Putin has clearly lined up the Russian military to encircle the city of Kyiv, start a bombardment, probably put special forces in there, potentially push some of these Chechen and Syrian fighters he's been threatening forward," the retired admiral explained.
"He got an agenda to conduct a medieval siege on that city and, by the way, that will be a tough order of business," he continued. "Those Ukrainians know every single alley, every backroom, every road, every intersection. The Russians are going to find themselves in a hard fight. By point of comparison, when the U.S. First Marine Division in the battle of Fallujah was ordered to take that city, those are the best combat shock troops on the planet Earth. It took them two months of hard fighting to get that job done. Fallujah is one-tenth the size of Kyiv."
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