US – Russia’s offensive in Donbass against Ukraine reduced, according to International

A senior Pentagon official said on Friday that Russia’s offensive in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine was progressing slowly and beyond schedule.

“We believe they’re less than they expected to achieve at Donbass,” a senior U.S. Department of Defense official told reporters. “They were at least several days late,” he said anonymously.

In the Kharkiv region (east), he said, “they made no contact” with troops entering the north of the region and those coming from the south of the country. Moscow is believed to be slowly trying to attack Ukrainian forces in the front lines around the Russian-backed separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.

“They did not mobilize very fast,” the official said. “They can only do a few kilometers a day because they are being driven out,” the Ukrainian military said.

While the war is already going on in this important area, “we hope they continue to create the conditions for a sustained, large and sustainable offensive,” the senior official added.

He explained that the Russian forces “did not want to make the same mistakes as in Kiev”, where their tank support was withdrawn as Ukrainian forces were armed with hand-held anti-aircraft missiles.