Media: West disappointed with Ukraine’s counteroffensive

Ukraine’s counteroffensive does not live up to the expectations of Western countries. About this with reference to a Western official and a senior US military writes CNN.

One source told reporters that the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) “does not live up to expectations on any front.”

The breakthrough of the Ukrainian army is complicated by well-fortified defense lines and the effective actions of the Russian military to destroy armored vehicles and use aviation, the channel writes. At the same time, the West “remains optimistic” because, according to one of the interlocutors, the counteroffensive is in its early stages. The Allies will wait until July to make a fuller assessment.

On June 21, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview with the BBC acknowledgedthat the counteroffensive is “slower than we would like”. He explained that the difficulty in the offensive is the territory mined by the Russian army – according to his estimates, this is about 200,000 square meters. km.

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declaredthat the active phase of the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was replaced by a certain lull, due to serious losses on the Ukrainian side. According to him, the soldiers of the Russian army have already destroyed 245 tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and 678 armored vehicles of various types.

On June 20, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters that the United States initially realized that the UAF counteroffensive would be difficult, but considered sufficient stocks of Western weapons to carry out the offensive. Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar, in turn, reportedthat the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the offensive are faced with the “frantic” resistance of the Russian Armed Forces, and in some areas it is the Russian side that conducts offensive operations.