“Russia answers resistance with firepower,” notes the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, who is in Kyiv now and covered the conflicts in Chechnya and Syria. “Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.”

He added, “The depressing conclusion I’ve drawn from other wars in which I have seen Russians in action is that it could get much worse.”

On Sunday evening, a senior Pentagon official sent Playbook an update on the Russian military campaign.

The headline:

While the Russians try to encircle and choke off major cities in the north and east, such as Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Chernihiv, they “are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance.”

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
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56: The Lie - I'll Start Tomorrow