Ukraine should take risks during the counteroffensive before its completion, the defense analyst believes. “Much more progress” is needed if the army is to achieve its main strategic objective of reaching the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News.

The entire 1,200 km long front line is active, but Ukrainian efforts have been focused on destroying Russian artillery, ammunition and fuel stocks behind the front line.

“Now everything is at stake, because the Ukrainians have advanced in three of the four places where they fought their way,” he said.

“Now they have to start taking risks, I think, and really try to make a breakthrough, even if it costs them a lot,” says Michael Clarke.

The Ukrainian military’s attacks on Russian supplies are intended to force Russia to retreat in disorder when it tries to “hit” them properly, the professor believes.

“Ukrainians are wasting their summer, consuming more and more weeks,” the professor said, adding that they probably have two months left for really important results.

Ukrainians advocate a counteroffensive

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, defended Ukraine’s progress in the counteroffensive, CNN reports.

He claimed that before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military was “hysterically afraid and did not even imagine that they could be effectively fought.”

“In order to finally dispel another myth, which even yesterday they were afraid to think about, everyone needs to be patient and carefully monitor the qualitative activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In any case, they will reach a mandatory and correct conclusion. Russia will cease to exist as a military threat after the war in Ukraine. At least for Ukraine and Europe. Meanwhile…offensive operations continue,” he wrote on Twitter.

In a video released Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said the counteroffensive was not easy and “probably slower” than some had hoped.

His comments came after CNN reported that Western officials were describing increasingly “gloomy” assessments of Ukrainian forces’ ability to retake significant territory as they try to break through Russia’s multi-layered defense lines, according to some senior US and Western officials familiar with the latest information .

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