Ukraine’s top military intelligence official said on Wednesday that Russia’s military offensive is slowing due to the moral and physical fatigue of its soldiers and Moscow’s “depleted” resource base, Reuters reported.

The televised statement by the head of the US Department of Defense’s Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, was one of the strongest signals from Ukraine that it believes that Russia’s offensive power may be waning.

“Russia has quite seriously reduced the pace of the offensive. The reason is the exhaustion of their resource base, as well as moral and physical fatigue from the battles,” he said.

Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow deliberately slowed down its campaign in Ukraine, and this was caused by the need to reduce civilian casualties.

Russia quickly seized southern Ukraine at the start of Moscow’s invasion exactly six months ago, but an attack on Kyiv was repulsed and Moscow retreated to focus on the east.

Moscow claims it captured the eastern Luhansk region in early July after a series of protracted and bloody battles, but has not claimed any major territorial gains since then.

Russian air defense systems in Crimea “not quite working”

Separately, Budanov said that Russian air defense systems in the annexed Crimean peninsula “actually do not work.”

The comment was one of the clearest evidence that Ukraine could launch attacks in Crimea, when he was asked about a series of bombings on the peninsula for which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility.

“Crimea … is protected by the best Russian air defense systems,” he said.

“They don’t really work and are not able to protect the territory seized from Ukraine.”

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