RUSSIAN FORCES DOWN BY THIRD, U.K. OFFICIAL SAYS

Russia has probably lost around a third of the ground forces it deployed to Ukraine and its offensive in the Donbas region “has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule,” British military intelligence said on Sunday.

“Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month while sustaining consistently high levels of attrition,” the British defence ministry said on Twitter.

“Russia has now likely suffered losses of one third.”

It said Russia was unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.

Since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, Ukraine’s military has forced Russia’s commanders to abandon an advance on the capital, Kyiv, before driving them away from the second biggest city of Kharkiv.