Pentagon: Ukrainian counteroffensive slower than expected

(Patria) - The Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces is proceeding slower than some expected, but it is still too early to draw conclusions about Kyiv's prospects for battlefield gains, a senior Pentagon official said, Reuters reported.

The United States and its allies have been supplying Ukraine with weapons and training Ukrainian forces in combined arms warfare techniques for months to help Kyiv break through Russian defenses during its counteroffensive. But Russia has also spent months digging defensive positions, surrounding them with mines, and building heavily armed fortifications, making Ukraine's progress in the east and south slow and bloody.

Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, told reporters that Russia had dug in more successfully "than perhaps was fully appreciated".

He expressed confidence that Kyiv was doing its best in the fight. "It is too early to judge how the counteroffensive is going one way or the other because we are in the early to middle stages," Kahl said at the Pentagon.

"They are still probing Russian lines and Russian areas with weak points. And the real test will be when they identify those weak points, how quickly they are able to exploit them," he said.

"We want to make sure that the Ukrainians have enough artillery to keep them in the fight in the context of the current counteroffensive, and because things are going a little slower than some had hoped," he said in the context of supplying cluster munitions.