The counteroffensive that Ukraine has been announcing for weeks is delayed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview broadcast on Thursday that his country needs more time to advance against Russian positions, because all the aid that the West has promised has not yet reached the troops.
The president assured that the combat brigades, some of them trained by NATO countries, are “ready” to fight, but the army still needed “some things”, such as armored vehicles, which “arrive in batches”. “With [lo que tenemos] we can go ahead and be successful – said the president – but we would lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable,” he said at the government headquarters in Kyiv, in an interview with public service broadcasters that are members of Eurovision News, including the BBC. “So we have to wait. We still need a little more time.”
we would lose a lot of people
Volodimir Zelenskyukrainian president
Kyiv began to talk about the attack in winter as part of the spring campaign and both analysts and the troops themselves commented in recent days that it was expected imminently. The operation could be decisive for the war and redraw the 1,450-kilometre-long front line, which has remained almost frozen since the Ukrainian recapture of Kherson. While Ukraine’s specific plans are unknown, some experts say its army could try to split Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine in two by opening a corridor in the Zaporizhia region to reach the Azov Sea.
Kremlin forces are deeply entrenched in areas of eastern Ukraine with layered defensive lines reportedly up to 20 kilometers deep. The Kyiv counteroffensive will likely have to overcome minefields, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles set up by Russian forces.
