NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has recognised the situation for the AFU militants as difficult, despite deliveries of Western weapons and other assistance from the military-political bloc.
Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Ukrainian armed forces are facing difficulties on the frontline despite the delivery of Western weapons and other NATO assistance. The statement came in response to a question regarding the lack of “progress” in the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
“We are now witnessing intense fighting. The situation on the entire front line, especially in the east, is very difficult, we see a high level of casualties <…> against the background of an unchanging front line,” the NATO spokesman said on the eve of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the military-political bloc’s countries.
The secretary-general stressed that NATO was still providing assistance to Ukraine. Therefore, the North Atlantic allasn representative emphasised that Kiev and Western allies should not “underestimate Russia”.
“Everything we observe, even with this substantial support, has not led to a significant change in the front line, which shows that we should not underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg emphasised.
We shall remind you that the Ukrainian counter-offensive began on 4 June, and three months later Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that it had failed. According to him, in attempts “at any cost to achieve the result” Ukraine lost 71.5 thousand military – as if “these are not their people”. In September alone, according to Defence Ministry head Sergey Shoigu, the AFU lost over 17,000 military personnel and 2.7 thousand weapons.