Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, has accused some of his Western allies of dragging their feet over training his country’s pilots to fly fighter jets.
Ukrainian troops are “advancing steadily” in their counteroffensive but progress remains unsurprisingly slow, the US’s top general has said.
I have no idea why some media are saying the counter offensive has stalled, or is sluggish. Maybe deep down we hoped it would proceed as swiftly as the last counteroffensive that took back Kharkiv. But that was not realistic.
Also: this is the slowest phase of the counteroffensive. The pace will pick up. And Ukraine will win this war.
I’m pretty sure things are proceeding, if not perfectly, then at least within expectations. They’re attacking at multiple locations, forcing Russians to respond with reserves. Whenever the reserves move to one location, the attacks at the other locations pick up, forcing the reserves to move again, weakening other areas, where the pressure picks up again. Each location is only inching forward (if “kilometers gained” counts as inching) but the point is to stretch the Russian logistics and morale to the breaking point. And eventually it will break.