fierce battle with ukraine's defense ministry's. there are gained territory allowed ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway, and block russian troops from surrounding kyiv from the northwest. now, of course, this, more than three weeks in, has hardly been the lightning quick military operation that putin planned on. the pentagon says that morale among russian troops is flagging. >> look, take a step back, they have struggled, again, with logistics and sustainment. they've struggled with maneuver, they did not expect the stiff ukrainian resistance, we don't see them integrating air and ground forces the way you would think a modern military might do that. they appear to be operating in silos, we think they're having control problems, just to communicate it with one another, and communicate between units. so, there has been a lot but