U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that while Ukraine has reconquered half the territory that Russia initially seized in its invasion, Kyiv faced a "a very hard fight" to win back more.

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that while Ukraine has reconquered half the territory that Russia initially seized in its invasion, Kyiv faced a “a very hard fight” to win back more.

“It’s already taken back about 50% of what was initially seized,” Blinken said in an interview to CNN on Sunday.

“These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough,” he said, adding: “It will not play out over the next week or two. We’re still looking I think at several months.”

Hopes that Ukraine could quickly clear Moscow’s forces from its territory following the launch of a summer counteroffensive are fading as Kyiv’s troops struggle to breach heavily entrenched Russian positions in the country’s south and east.

Late last month President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that progress against Russian forces was “slower than desired” but that Kyiv would not be pressured into speeding it up.

  • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1019·
    1 year ago

    Huh I guess you can get kinda close to 40% ? I suppose most of us aren’t including the north east withdrawal because it’s largely seen as a distraction and not really a “front” that actually happened, and Kyiv feels like it happened 10 years ago now. It makes sense that Blinken would include the stuff most people wouldn’t think of as having been Ukraine “taking it back” because the bigger number looks good in media.

    • chowder@lemmy.oneEnglish
      178·
      1 year ago

      Lmfao " Kyiv was a feint" do you really believe that? Dude they lost so many VDV the BBC did a piece on it. To say it was just a distraction is bullshit Russian propaganda. They attacked, failed, then retreated and reinforced the areas they were more successful.

      • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1220·
        1 year ago

        Nah I’m not talking about Kyiv. The north east was hardly any troops, no supply, just empty roads that were taken with no resistance. And then they withdrew with no resistance too after the Kyiv attack failed. My point being that it’s hardly worth considering it as having been “taken” in the first place, and most don’t. The Kyiv part itself is fair to bring up, just easy to forget given how long ago it was.

        Anyway people should be more concerned about the new russian offensive getting hyped up. A lot of rumours stirring around that look similar to the rumours before Bahkmut right now.

        • chowder@lemmy.oneEnglish
          65·
          1 year ago

          No resistance? They sieged Chernihiv from February 25-March 31.

          You count Bakhmut as a Russian victory? Nobody won Bakhmut, Russian expended a massive ammout of manpower and resources for nothing. The front didn’t change in any meaningful way, hell the fact they are struggled so much to reclaim a town they captured in 2014 should tell you how bad things are for Russia. Seriously dude they drafted 300,000 and still the only way they made progress was by throwing prisoners at it.

          Also spoiler alert they have been on the offensive this entire time. The only competent people have been removed from power. The one to order defensive lines made and mines laid backed Pringlez. Pringlez is also gone now so yeah I don’t really see this offensive playing out any way.

          • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
            95·
            1 year ago

            I didn’t say anything about victories. I couldn’t give a shit about who is winning or losing I would prefer the fighting to stop immediately it’s all a waste of lives and the destruction of families.

            I don’t think we should be counting Pringlez as gone, Wagner are training Belarus troops I’m not convinced that he isn’t involved in that given that he moved to Belarus.~

            What I’m talking about is the 100k troops and 1k tanks that have been built up for the new Russian push. We might see a big arrow offensive again instead of this attrition stuff that has been going on. It’s all speculation obviously but the telegrams feel a lot like they did before Bahkmut when the rumours were circling that it was going to be next, this makes me think that this is actually going to happen fairly soon. But hey I’ve been wrong before so ehhh

            Bit annoying that just having any kind of conversation here gets you downvoted for apparently no reason at all. Weird userbase in this comm, doesn’t happen anywhere else on lemmy.

            • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
              67·
              1 year ago

              I downvoted you because you’re saying false/insane things. That’s the point of downvotes.

              • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
                81·
                1 year ago

                What false things have I said? The troop build up they’ve been doing has been well known for a long time now, like literally months they’ve been doing this buildup for. Many are talking about it, both pro-russian and pro-ukrainian.

                https://youtu.be/38Mcg_hrQLk

                https://youtu.be/PXhg9DfTIVg

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTTxcfKAmqA

                https://t.me/Slavyangrad/56341

                https://t.me/rybar/50008

                https://t.me/DeepStateUA/17195

                It’s like some of you aren’t actually paying any attention to anything other than ABC/Reuters/CNN. These outlets are useless for speculation content you have to go elsewhere for it.

                • redtea@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
                  4·
                  1 year ago

                  What are the potential targets of the build-up? Just advancing the line after Ukraine has exhausted a lot of it’s force on its counteroffensive? Or would there be a option between a few cities? Maybe cities that sit in the middle of several supply routes?

                  • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    5·
                    1 year ago

                    Looks like it’s Svatova with a push that looks intended to go towards the Kupyansk direction to me but it’s hard to tell, a big push could change quickly depending on level of resistance and any encirclements that might happen. Assuming they actually broke the line in some way. The Russian attempt to do a big offensive could go as badly as the Ukrainian one, I wouldn’t rule that out with the cluster munitions which could easily slow them down.

                • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  25·
                  1 year ago

                  There is a 0% chance Russia has “thousands of functioning tanks” that mysteriously weren’t deemed necessary during their worldwide embarrassment of logistics last year.

                  • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    61·
                    1 year ago

                    I didn’t say thousands. I said a thousand. It’s actually estimated closer to 900 in this buildup along with the 100k troops but that’s neither here nor there really. Maybe if you actually bothered to read or watch anything I send you then you would know this? The issue here is that you’re unwilling to take onboard any information unless it comes from your little circle of neoliberal media sources, which are always late, and always doing an incredibly repetitive narrative that really doesn’t serve to learn or understand much at all. This leaves you completely unaware of what is actually happening.

              • jackal@lemmy.mlEnglish
                21·
                1 year ago

                Will you remove your downvote now that Kupyansk is almost taken by the Russians?