Russian troops killed one of their own commanders due to the losses being suffered during the invasion of Ukraine, Western officials have said.
It is also believed Vladimir Putin has decided to “pause” his attempt to take Kyiv in order to concentrate his forces on the Donbas region in the east of the country.
Russian troops have unexpectedly “found themselves in a hornets’ nest and are suffering really badly”, a Western official said, leading to widespread morale problems.
As the advance falters, Russian soldiers are said to have killed one of their own senior officers.
“We believe he was killed by his own troops deliberately. Indeed we believe he was run over by his own troops,” an official said.
In addition, another Russian general is believed to have been killed by Ukrainian forces, taking the total since the start of the war to seven.
One official said Russia had decided to “pause those operations” to advance on Kyiv and had decided to “dig in and build some defensive positions”.
“It’s clear Russia is recognising that it can’t pursue its options on multiple axis simultaneously,” the official said.
But they warned the West should not be “getting ahead of ourselves” in believing significant Russian difficulties so far meant it would lose. “What we’re not seeing ins a turning of the tide,” the official added.
It came as about 300 people died in a Russian air strike last week on a theatre being used as a bomb shelter in the besieged city of Mariupol.
When the theatre was struck on March 16, an enormous inscription reading “Children” was posted outside in Russian, intended to be visible from the skies above.
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