Ukraine postponed counter-offensive due to shortages: Zelensky gave details

The leader of Ukraine stressed that the main task was not to risk the lives of military personnel in vain.

The Ukrainian military could not launch a counteroffensive earlier due to a lack of military equipment and weapons. President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said this during a joint briefing with Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen on Sunday, August 20.

“If you have a shortage of armored vehicles, a shortage of tanks, then you will simply lose people. Thousands of people could have died. You will walk one, two, three or five kilometers, but you will lose thousands of people. You will not achieve the goal that we all need. This is de-occupation, complete de-occupation of our entire territory. That’s all, we waited until we had capacity,” said the President of Ukraine.

The politician also spoke about the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during his visit to the Netherlands.

“As for the counter-offensive, we are advancing, I think this is positive. I would not forget that we are attacking and fighting not against anyone, but against the Russian Federation. A year ago she wanted to completely destroy us and capture us, but it didn’t work out. And now we have a counter-offensive. I know that you always want it faster, that airplanes can speed up this process, that the Russian Federation dominates in the sky and that we will not limit ourselves to airplanes,” the president said.

Let us remind you that on August 19, ISW spoke about the successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Rabotino during the counteroffensive. Analysts noted that the Ukrainian military continued counter-offensive operations on three sectors of the front, in particular advancing at the Avdiivka-Donetsk line and in the west of the Zaporozhye region.

And on August 18, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that the offensive of the Ukrainian Defense Forces would occur slowly and over a long period of time, while Russian troops had already suffered significant losses. According to an American top officer, the Russian occupation forces are experiencing serious difficulties - low morale, command friction and disrupted logistics. At the same time, Ukrainian troops are slowly but surely advancing.