“The president had a feeling, again, based on fact, that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons,” Leavitt said.

“We knew that there ​was going to be an Israeli action, ​we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we ​didn’t preemptively go after them before they ​launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said Monday.

Meanwhile, the reported Ukrainian gains are mainly due to counterattacks along the southern front, according to Black Bird Group, where Ukraine succeeded in pushing Russia out of 213 km² of territory.