A high-ranking U.S. Defense Department official said that the Kremlin has begun mobilizing reservists and new recruits. Thus, Russia plans to recruit more than 60,000 military personnel.
This was reported by Reuters.
Russian troops that were in the Kiev region are being sent to Belarus and some parts of western Russia, such as Belgorod, to re-equip and resupply.
That said, the Pentagon believes that Moscow has yet to solve the logistical problems that have hampered their invasion from the start.
"We have seen signs that some units are literally destroyed in every sense," the U.S. Defense Department said.
The Pentagon spokesman also noted that Russia's combat power in Ukraine continues to decline and is at 80 percent to 85 percent of what it was before the full-scale invasion.
The U.S. estimates that Russia had amassed more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine before the February 24 invasion.
A Pentagon spokesman also said that Russia used a short-range ballistic missile in a missile strike on Kramatorsk on April 8, where the death toll rose to 52.
Meanwhile, the U.S. believes that Russian forces used an SS-21 Scarab missile for the strike, but the motives of the attack are unclear. Note that SS-21 is the name used by the NATO military alliance for the type of missile known as Tochka in the former Soviet republics.
According to a U.S. official, the United States is still analyzing the strike, and it is not yet clear whether cluster munitions were used.
"We don't believe in the Russians' denial of their innocence," the official said.
