Russian forces still face logistical challenges in their offensive, a Pentagon official says.

Russian forces are making “slow and uneven” progress in fierce fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, but are still struggling to overcome the same supply line problems that hampered their initial offensive, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaged in heated combat in this latest phase of the war, with both sides seizing a village or two, then losing control, then regaining it in a seesaw campaign, the Pentagon official said. Russian troops have made “incremental” progress but nowhere near enough to seize an overall advantage, the official said.

Wary of running too far ahead of their supply lines — as they did in the initial weeks of a failed attempt to seize Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital — Russian troops are advancing cautiously in this current phase, able to sustain only several kilometers of progress each day, the Pentagon official said. Read more

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