Major General Kirillo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, speaks during an interview with Reuters, amid Russia’s offensive against Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, July 6, 2023. REUTERS/Valentin Ogierenko Obtaining licensing rights
KIEV (Reuters) – Kiev’s intelligence chief Kirillo Budanov said on Saturday that Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russian forces would continue through the onset of cold and rainy weather later this year, although the fighting would become more difficult.
Ukraine launched a much-vaunted counteroffensive this summer, recapturing more than a dozen villages in the south and east over three months, but it was complicated by vast minefields and heavily entrenched Russian forces.
“The hostilities will continue one way or another. In the cold, wet and mud, it is much more difficult to fight. And the fighting will continue. The counterattack will continue,” Budanov said.
The comments, made at a conference in Kiev hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, provide the strongest indication yet that Ukraine is not planning to halt its endeavor when the weather turns later this year.
The West has provided billions of dollars in military equipment and trained thousands of Ukrainian fighters to counterattack to help Kiev try to regain territory.
But the slow progress of the counteroffensive has raised concerns among Kiev’s supporters that the West may find it difficult to maintain the scale of military aid to Ukraine to continue fighting with the same intensity.
Vadym Skipetsky, an official with Ukraine’s military spy agency, said earlier Saturday that Russia currently has 420,000 troops inside Ukraine.
The advance in the southeastern Zaporizhia region, now centered around the villages of Ropotyn and Verbov, is seen as an important part of an operation that seeks to split the Russian occupation forces in half in the south, but remains far from this goal.
“Our counterattack is taking place in several directions,” Budanov said, admitting that progress was slower than he wanted and describing the situation as difficult.
Aside from the massive concentration of Russian mines, he has identified the large number of small Russian “kamikadze” drones as a major factor that has slowed Ukraine’s advance so far.
Russia, which launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, said the Ukrainian counterattack had failed.
Writing by Tom Palmforth. Edited by Mike Harrison
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