NEW YORK, September 21. /TASS/. The Ukrainian troops suffered heavy losses during the counteroffensive and were actually forced to cancel it, Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said, citing an American official close to US intelligence.

"After weeks of high casualties and little progress, along with horrific losses to tanks and armored vehicles, major elements of the Ukrainian army, without declaring so, virtually canceled the offensive," Hersh wrote on his page on the Substask platform.

According to the journalist, the source told him that Ukrainian troops would have mutinied if they had been ordered to continue the offensive. "The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House," the journalist said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian army has been making unsuccessful offensive attempts since June 4. On September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukrainian armed forces had lost 71,500 servicemen, 543 tanks and almost 18,000 armored vehicles of various classes. According to the head of state, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has no results.