ROME, June 29. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces are facing ammunition shortages and significant defense barriers, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, published on Thursday.

"The frontline is more than 1,800 kilometers long and the area of minefields exceeds 20,000 square kilometers. The Russians have established three lines of defense, digging trenches, building bunkers and setting up artillery positions. They are firing rockets, they have thousands of tanks in areas that are well-protected, particularly from above. They have some 360,000 troops," he said in response to a question about the slow pace of the Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive.

"We don’t have enough munitions and large-caliber rockets. The capacity of our aircraft is limited and we cannot hit the Russian army’s reinforcement routes," Podolyak admitted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces had lost 259 tanks and 780 armored vehicles since the start of their counteroffensive. According to Russia, no large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive is taking place.