Ukraine counteroffensive creeps ahead, measured in blood

Reuters:

June 30- Ukraine has been publicly cautious in counting gains in a counteroffensive it launched this month to reclaim territory occupied by Russian forces, and on Friday its president and a U.S. general acknowledged that progress is measured in blood.

The top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington that the counteroffensive was “advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields … 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2,000 meters a day, that kind of thing.”

He said he was unsurprised progress was slower than some people and computers might have predicted.

“War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives.”

He added, “What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that.”

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the counteroffensive was “slower than desired”, without getting too specific. Ukraine says it has recaptured a cluster of villages in operations that liberated 130 square km (50 square miles) in the south, but this is a small percentage of the total territory held by Russia.

On Friday, Zelenskiy said his forces advanced “in all directions of our active operations,” while Hanna Maliar, deputy defense minister, said the military assessed progress as “going according to plan,” and that the counteroffensive should be evaluated by “a lot of different military tasks.”

Reuters was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield. Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022 has not acknowledged the Ukrainian gains and has said Ukraine’s forces are suffering heavy casualties.