Milley on Ukraine’s counteroffensive: sometimes units have to slow down to advance further

Military analysts have failed to predict the exact pace of the Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russian invasion troops due to the unpredictable realities of war.

That’s according to General Mark Milley, Chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“As Ukraine continues its counteroffensive, we are reminded that real war is not war on paper,” Milley told a press conference on Tuesday, speaking alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin..

“These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing real minefields, and they are really dying,” the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed, explaining to reporters that, when that happens, units tend to slow down in order to survive and make it through those minefields.

“They’re working their way through it, it is far from a failure in my view. I think it’s way too early to make that kind of call,” General Milley said. 

“This is going to be long, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be bloody.”

He concluded that at the end of the day, “we’ll see where the Ukrainians end up vis a vis the Russians.”

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the latest meeting of the Ukraine Defense Support Group, the so-called Ramstein format, was held via video conference on July 18. The defense chiefs discussed preparations for training Ukrainian war pilots on F16 fighter jets, as well as providing additional air defense capabilities, other weapons and ammunition to Ukraine’s Armed Forces.