ANKARA 

The situation on Ukraine’s Kharkiv front is “stabilizing,” the US defense secretary said Thursday. 

“What I see is a slowing of the Russians’ advance and a stabilizing of that particular piece of the front,” Lloyd Austin told a news conference in Brussels on the sidelines of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting.

He voiced his expectations to see “incremental gains” in that region for the Ukrainian forces.

“We remain determined to keep supporting Ukraine," he said, adding: "(Russian President Vladimir) Putin thinks that he gets to determine which countries are real and which countries can be wiped off the map. That is … incredibly dangerous.”