A top-ranking US military officer has said that Ukraine has about 30 days of fighting left before weather hinders its counteroffensive. Colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to manoeuvre, Gen Mark Milley told BBC.
"There's still heavy fighting going on,” Milley said, adding that the offensive had gone on slower than expected. "The Ukrainians are still plugging away with steady progress," he said.
Kyiv's intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, on the other hand, said, Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces will continue through the onset of cold and wet weather later this year, Reuters reported.
Milley also said that it was “way too early” to say whether the counteroffensive had failed. Kyiv launched its counteroffensive in July and aims to reclaim the Russia-occupied territories, but, has made small gains.
"Ukraine is winning and Russia is losing," Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the UK chief of defence staff told BBC. "That is because the aim of Russia was to subjugate Ukraine and to put it under Russia's control,” Radakin said.
Over a dozen villages have been taken back, but, efforts have been complicated by vast minefields and heavily entrenched Russian forces. The slow progress of the counteroffensive, has, however, sparked concerns among Ukraine's supporters, especially the West, which has supplied military equipment worth billions and trained thousands of Ukrainian fighters.
Ukraine's progress was also down to the international community "applying economic pressure and diplomatic pressure, and Russia is suffering because of that,” Radakin said.
The push in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, now centred around the villages of Robotyne and Verbove, is seen as a crucial part of an operation that seeks to split Russia's occupying forces in half in the south, but remains far from that goal, Reuters reported."Our counteroffensive is happening in several directions," Budanov said.