LONDON, May 11. /TASS/. The Ukrainian army needs a little bit more time to prepare for Kiev’s much-vaunted counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with European media outlets, including the BBC, published on Thursday.
"With [what we already have] we can go forward, and, I think, be successful. But we'd lose a lot of people. I think that's unacceptable. So, we need to wait. We still need a bit more time," Zelensky said.
As follows from Zelensky’s statement, those Ukrainian brigades formed especially for the counteroffensive are already fully ready to take part in combat operations, but the army still needs "certain things," including armored vehicles, which are "arriving in batches."
The Ukrainian president also stated that those who are calling for peace talks to start as soon as possible could not force Ukraine to surrender its territories. He noted that Kiev was not afraid of losing support from Washington after the next US presidential election in November 2024, because, according to Zelensky, both the Democrats and the Republicans are allies of Ukraine.
The issue of a potential counterattack by the Ukrainian army has been discussed in the Ukrainian media for several months. A buildup of Ukrainian reserves was noted in the Zaporozhye area recently. Media reports have mooted various dates for the start of an attack, but the commencement of Kiev’s much-ballyhooed counteroffensive has been postponed several times already. Among the reasons the reports mentioned were the slow delivery of Western equipment, bad weather and huge losses suffered by Ukrainian troops in Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine).