WASHINGTON, December 8. /TASS/. The United States believes that the Kiev government currently has the weapons and equipment that it needs to be successful on the battlefield, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh has told reporters.

When asked whether the United States viewed the current situation in Ukraine as a stalemate, she said: "I'd let the Ukrainians speak to their own operations <…>. We have provided them the training, the equipment, the support that they need to be successful, and we feel very confident that they will be successful."

Commenting on a journalist’s suggestion that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, Singh continued: "I don't think it's failed. We have seen them make progress in the counter-offensive. It might not be the gains that they want to be making every single day but there is incremental progress."

In her opinion, "invigorating their [Ukrainian] defense industrial base" would pave the way for Ukraine’s future military successes.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky admitted on November 22 that Kiev’s counter-offensive, on which his government and the Western countries had pinned great hopes, has failed. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny told the Economist in early November that the conflict around Ukraine had reached a stalemate and the country’s troops would not be able to achieve a breakthrough. According to the Ukrainian general, a positional conflict of attrition could drag on for years and wear Ukraine down.

The Ukrainian military has been making unsuccessful attempts at an offensive since June 4. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on November 21 that since the beginning of that month Ukrainian forces had lost more than 13,700 men and about 1,800 units of weapons and military equipment. He said in October that Kiev had lost more than 90,000 servicemen, along with about 600 tanks and 1,900 armored vehicles of various types since the start of the counteroffensive. Russia has repeatedly said that Kiev’s counteroffensive hasn’t achieved any significant results, despite the heavy losses.