US says Russia ‘slow progress’ in operation in eastern Ukraine

According to CNN, a US official said there was “some evidence” of an improvement in the ability to combine air and ground operations, as well as the ability to resupply Russian forces on the battlefield. Ukraine. However, this progress has been “slow and uneven”, and only allows Russian forces to advance “a few kilometers” per day.

However, the US also assessed that Russia was trying to learn from the mistakes it made at the early stages of the campaign, when shortages of food and fuel made the Russians easy targets for wars. Ukrainian guerrilla art.

According to a senior NATO official, Russia has placed command and control operations near the border with eastern Ukraine, a sign that it is trying to fix communication and coordination problems. fighting as in previous attacks on Kiev.

“The attacks have been somewhat better coordinated, but with small formations, company size with support from helicopters,” a European defense official said.

However, the authorities military The West, familiar with the latest intelligence, says that, even with lessons learned from the early stages of the military campaign in Ukraine, it is not clear that Moscow will be able to make changes. change necessary for military actions in the Donbass region or not.

These officials also believe that Russia will gradually add more forces to the fighting, due to phase 2 military campaign in Ukraine will be very different from the first phase, when fighting was mainly concentrated in urban areas.

“The new offensive in Donbass will see Russia organize the operation in the usual way, like during World Wars I and II, with the participation of heavy weapons, the terrain is more open,” the NATO official said. .

However, sources told CNN that as the campaign expands in eastern Ukraine, the Russian military will also become more vulnerable. Part of the reason is that as more and more soldiers in the country’s supplementary force are new recruits, morale is easily reduced.

“These new conscripts had high morale at first, but it didn’t take long for that morale to drop as they entered the war and faced resistance from Ukrainian forces,” an official said. US defense said on April 28.

Besides, weather problems and muddy terrain in Ukraine can still hinder the advance of Russian troops, as they encountered in the suburbs of the capital Kiev.

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