Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian strikes on infrastructure more infrequent due to missile shortage, says UK

Ministry of Defence says Russia’s limited supply of munitions is limiting offensive operations; Washington says Russian president has finally ‘called the war what it is’

Russia is probably limiting its missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure because of its limited supply of cruise missiles, the UK’s Ministry of Defence says.

In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said Russia had increased its forces in Ukraine with tens of thousands of reservists since October, easing personnel shortages, but that “a shortage of munitions highly likely remains the key limiting factor on Russian offensive operations”.

Russia has likely limited its long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure to around once a week due to the limited availability of cruise missiles.

Similarly, Russia is unlikely to have increased its stockpile of artillery munitions enough to enable large-scale offensive operations.

Since February 24, the United States and rest of the world knew that Putin’s ‘special military operation’ was an unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. Finally, after 300 days, Putin called the war what it is.

As a next step in acknowledging reality, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine.

The people of Ukraine no doubt find little consolation in Putin stating the obvious, nor do the tens of thousands of Russian families whose relatives have been killed fighting Putin’s war.