U.S. Believes Ukraine 'Has Some Surprises In Store': State Dept

The United States said on Tuesday it believes that Ukraine "has some surprises in store" that will help it win on the battlefield, as the State Department's Spokesperson Matthew Miller put it, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"We believe that Ukraine has a plan that they can execute to achieve victories on the battlefield," Miller told a daily briefing when responding to TURAN's questions.

He went on to elaborate: "We’ve seen them having victories on the battlefield, most recently in the Black Sea, where in the last 24 hours they sunk another Russian ship. So we do believe that they have some surprises in store. We look forward to seeing the results."

Earlier, Kyiv officials had announced that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian warship with highly advanced sea drones in the Black Sea, the latest blow to Russia’s navy in the war.

Ukraine's Defense Intelligence confirmed that Russian patrol ship Sergei Kotov was attacked by five drones in the waters near the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Miller's comments also reflected State Department's third-ranking official Victoria Nuland's recent statements in Kyiv in which she said Putin was going to "get some nice surprises on the battlefield.” 

When asked by TURAN if the Department still shared Nuland's sentiment, Miller said, "we do, we do!"

Miller also emphasized Nuland's leadership in matters of Ukraine and that her efforts were indispensable to confronting Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as she will soon retire from the Department, after three and a half decades of public service under six U.S. presidents and ten secretaries of state.