Russia is struggling to attract new recruits for its army, a U.S. official says.

Russia is struggling to attract recruits for its army amid its setbacks in Ukraine, while the United States is open to potentially sending Western tanks to Kyiv, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday.

“The Russians are performing so poorly that the news from Kharkiv Province has inspired many Russian volunteers to refuse combat,” the official said, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the status of Russia’s war in Ukraine, adding that the leader of the Wagner Group, a private military company with ties to the Kremlin, had been seen in videos posted on social media asking Russian prisoners, Tajiks, Belarusians and Armenians to join the fight in Ukraine. Read more

@nytimes