Gen. Mark Milley said on Friday that Ukraine‘s counteroffensive against Russia will be “very, very bloody,” noting that progress is not being made as quickly as hoped.
“What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, ten weeks; it’s going to be very difficult,” Milley told reporters at the National Press Club.
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“It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one had any illusions about any of that,” Milley said.
Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and principal military adviser to President Joe Biden, said Ukrainian forces are advancing “through very difficult minefields” and making progress of 500 to 2,000 meters per day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a recent interview with the BBC that approximately 200,000 square kilometers, or 77,220 square miles, of occupied territory, had been mined by Russian forces.
“War on paper and real war are different,” said Milley. “In real war, real people die.”
In June, CIA director William J. Burns made an unannounced trip to Ukraine to meet with top officials, where he was briefed on Ukrainian plans to retake Russian-occupied territory and begin ceasefire negotiations by the end of 2023.
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Officials in Kyiv have been vocal regarding the slow pace of the counteroffensive, but Burns’s trip revealed they remain privately confident their ambitious strategy to bring Russia to the negotiating table will be effective.
“What’s at stake is people’s lives,” Zelensky told the BBC. “Whatever some might want, including attempts to pressure us, with all due respect, we will advance on the battlefield the way we deem best.”
