simple question to answer, but u.s. defense officials have been unable to identify a commander. that could explain the commanding control problems that russian troops have had so far. according to the pentagon, russia has failed to achieve most of its military objective in this country. cnn s katie bo lil lis live in washington with her reporting on this. what have you learned? reporter: yeah, john. multiple u.s. officials say multiple sources familiar with the matter, not all u.s. officials, have told us that the united states has been unable to determine exactly who the top senior leader, the top military leader on the ground leading russian troops in ukraine is. the kind of theater-wide commander that the united states would anticipate that russia or any professional military would put into place to run its war in a coherent fashion. now, the russian ministry of defense has declined to respond to request for comment from cnn, but our sources tell us that
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
the truth because number one and number two is an unsustainable position for the white house. now you have the biden administration looking like they are trying to be in control by adopting a position which is they had no idea that this was going to be as bad as it was while their poll numbers are sink and while the american people, who elected joe biden, who put him in office based on the fact that they were going to get this virus under control, now has testing problems as you ve been talking about, they have control problems, and everything they promised the american people is actually not only not happening but it s in worse shape than it was when they took over. dana: president biden yesterday got quite defensive when he was asked about the problems of getting tests to americans. they are going to send 500 million tests in mid-january, which doesn t help anybody right before the holidays, reince. no, it doesn t help.