WASHINGTON — Plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages, some Russian troops in Ukraine have surrendered en masse or sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

Some entire Russian units have laid down their arms without a fight after confronting a surprisingly stiff Ukrainian defense, the official said. A significant number of the Russian troops are young conscripts who are poorly trained and ill-prepared for the all-out assault. And in some cases, Russian troops have deliberately punched holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks, presumably to avoid combat, the official said.

The Pentagon official declined to say how the military made these assessments — presumably a mosaic of intelligence including statements from captured Russian soldiers and communications intercepts — or how widespread these setbacks may be across the sprawling battlefield. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational developments.

Recently purchased by The New York Times, Wordle has moved to the NYT website, where it's still free. Some people think it's harder now (it's not). Others noticed their win streaks and guess distributions weren't imported (later fixed). Yet, there's a fear that the subscription-based Times will eventually hide the game behind a paywall -- which is why you might want to download Wordle to keep playing it for free.

Twitter user Aaron Rieke posted a thread explaining how Wordle runs entirely in your web browser. Technically you don't need the internet to play Wordle, because all of the game's future daily words are included right in the webpage (even on the NYT). If you download a web archive of Wordle, the game only needs your device's current date to deliver a new word puzzle each day.