Russia is struggling to make significant military gains in Ukraine’s Donbas region because it is fighting Kyiv’s forces one-on-one, a pro-Moscow reporter has said.

War correspondent and Putin propagandist Aleksandr Sladkov made a rare admission of Russia’s military struggles in Ukraine, speaking in a video posted to social media late on Monday.

He said that Vladimir Putin’s so-called special military operation was ‘shamefully indecisive’, that Russian troops ‘can’t push out Ukrainian forces’, and that Moscow’s armies are ‘making a feat out of something that should be routine’…

It was unclear whether Sladkov was saying Ukrainian or Russian forces had made a salient into the other’s territory, but by saying ‘we can’t close the the sailient’, it suggested Russian forces had been unable to encircle Kyiv’s troops.