MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. It would be very difficult for Ukraine to continue fighting without military assistance from its Western partners, Kirill Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian defense ministry’s main intelligence directorate, said on Friday.

"It would be difficult, very difficult. No need to beat around the bush, it would be very difficult," he said in an interview with the 1+1 television channel.

At the same time, he noted that "there is no reason to think that weapons supplies will be completely stopped."

Commenting on the West’s criticism that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is proceeding too slowly, Budanov stressed that it "is not being carried out for our partners."

After the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the West imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia and beefed up arms supplies to the Kiev regime worth tens of billions of dollars. However, Kiev keeps on asking for more weapons, long-range missiles and planes.

Due to the lack of much-advertised "breakthroughs" in the combat operations zone, Kiev is afraid Western countries will reduce their financial support and is seeking to shift the responsibility for its failures on its allies, who, it claims, have been long too hesitant on issues of arms supplies. According to Bloomberg analysts, Western partners are concerned that combat operations will be prolonged because their capacities are running out and increasing weapons production is problematic.

Meanwhile, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow considers supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine as evidence of the West’s growing involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.