PUTIN ARMY 'FROZEN' BY FIERCE FIGHTBACK

WAR IN UKRAINE RUSSIA UNLEASHES ‘UNIMAGINABLE SUFFERING' IN STALLED INVASION

- Nicholas Cecil, Michael Howie and Will Stewart

VLADIMIR PUTIN'S troops are “frozen” in their positions as his invasion has stalled and he resorts to inflicting “unimaginable suffering" on civilians by bombarding Ukrainian towns and cities, US and UK defence chiefs said today.

Britain's armed forces minister James Heappey said Russian troops were “making no real progress", having failed to encircle Kyiv or to capture any major city in Ukraine. President Putin also appeared to be facing growing disquiet in Russia after his invasion plan, which is thought to have envisaged seizing Kyiv within days, has gone so spectacularly wrong with thousands of his troops being killed.

Attempted advances, with poorly-supplied forces suffering low morale, were being met by strong Ukrainian resistance, preventing them from gaining ground, say defence sources. “They clearly were not prepared for them to be in the position they are three weeks in – basically frozen around the country on multiple lines of axes, struggling to fuel themselves and to feed their troops and to supply them with arms and ammunition and meeting a very determined Ukrainian resistance," said a senior US official.