Ukrainian forces are striving, in the east and south, to cut the Russian army’s logistical lines which connect Russian territory to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied since 2014. The Ukrainian counter-offensive “did not fail” but the road to a victory for kyiv is still very long, judged the American chief of staff, General Mark Milley, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“This offensive, although slow, slower than expected, has remained constant”, he estimated, affirming that the Ukrainians still had “a significant strike force”. The general, however, conceded that he “will take a long time” to achieve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s goal of “kicking out all the Russians” from the country. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also warned that we should not expect a rapid end to the war in Ukraine, in another interview published on Sunday.