Ukraine counteroffensive is far from failure, top US general Mark Milley says
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff chair warns the road ahead will be long and bloody, and ‘there’s a lot of fighting left to go’
- Kyiv has recaptured some villages in the south and territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut in the east, but has yet to attempt a breakthrough
Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia is far from a failure, but the fight ahead will be long and bloody, the top US general said on Tuesday, even as casualties on both sides mount and the front lines have moved only incrementally.
The United States and other allies have spent months building Ukraine a “mountain of steel” of weaponry and training Ukrainian forces in combined arms techniques to help Kyiv pierce formidable Russian defences during its counteroffensive.
Asked whether the counteroffensive was a failure, at least so far, General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said: “It is far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.
“I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: this is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody,” Milley told reporters.
Since Ukraine began its counteroffensive last month, Kyiv has recaptured some villages in the south and territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut in the east, but has yet to attempt a breakthrough across heavily defended Russian lines.