According to a US assessment, Russia is behind its own schedule in its military offensive in eastern Ukraine. “We do believe and assess that they are behind schedule in what they are trying to accomplish in the Donbass,” a senior Defence Department official said in Washington on Friday. The official said Moscow had hoped to be much farther along by now in the plan to encircle Ukrainian forces in the east, but that Russian troops were meeting stiff resistance. Russia attacked Ukraine in late February. After initially invading from the north, south and east, the Russian military later retreated …