Top US general Mark Milley says the ‘numbers clearly favor the Russians’ in east Ukraine right now

• Top US General Mark Milley said "the numbers clearly favor the Russians" in east Ukraine.
• Milley noting that the current fighting in east Ukraine "is not a done deal."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday said "the numbers clearly favor the Russians" in Ukraine as the two countries remain embroiled in war.

"I would say the numbers clearly favor the Russians, in terms of artillery," Milley said, adding that the Russians "outnumber, outgun, and outrange" Ukrainian forces.

"The Ukrainians are fighting them street by street, house by house," Milley said, stating that the fighting in the Donbas was "almost World War I-like." But he also emphasized that the battle is "not a done deal" and said a Russian victory isn't an "inevitability."

"There are no inevitabilities in war," Milley said. "War takes many, many turns."

On Tuesday, a top Pentagon official said that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to control parts of Ukraine, despite his forces failing to take Kyiv early in the invasion.

"I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country," US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said, Reuters reported.

The countries have been at war since Russia launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine on February 24. In the early days of the war, Russia's faced suffered major setbacks — failing to take Kyiv, the capital, and Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. After those early failures, Russia turned its focus on the eastern Donbas region — where it's gradually been making progress and hammering Ukrainian forces with relentless artillery fire.

The fighting in the Donbas had reached a decisive stage, with Russia on the brink of seizing the key city of Severodonetsk. Ukraine has implored the West for more weapons to help it push back the Russian offensive, underscoring that it's outgunned and seeing up to 1,000 casualties per day.

With Ukrainian forces struggling in the face of the Russian onslaught, President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that he was sending Ukraine an additional $1 billion in military aid that includes "additional artillery and coastal defense weapons, as well as ammunition for the artillery and advanced rocket systems that the Ukrainians need."