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.
I love boosting good news, especially given the enormous amount of Russian disinformation surrounding the “failure” and “slow going” of the offensive.
It was never going to be quick, or easy, and I think that the extraordinary successes of earlier Ukrainian counter-offensives set expectations higher than the reality on the ground.
But in the balance, Ukraine went from having half its territory captured by the 2nd strongest army in the world to knocking them back on their knees and retaking half of what was lost in the space of less than two years. That’s an incredible success in the face of overwhelming odds, even with NATO and EU support. One only has to look at the Russian takeovers in Eastern Europe after WWII to get a sense of how unique it is that Ukraine was able to not only resist, but drive back the invaders.
From California and all Americans who support freedom, Слава Україні!
Good for Ukraine.
Nice. They need to keep going.
Give them fucking jets for fucks sake.
Well it’s a start!
Slava Ukraini
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I’m sorry your soviet comrades are getting their shit pushed in and the ruble is becoming worthless.
Oh and here’s some proof of nazis in Russia. Enjoy!
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You only brought up nazis being in Ukraine. Yet, you became offended when I showed you that there are also nazis in Russia. Sounds like you’re doing a disservice to the living survivors of the massacres.
The next time you pretend not to support Russia’s massacre of the Ukrainians, spout their braindead propaganda about nazis only being in one country, and have a name like “Lenins2ndcat” maybe you should try a little harder to pretend that you’re being objective.
You only brought up nazis being in Ukraine.
That is not what the quote says at all, it simply discusses the origin of the phrase, not about whether Ukrainians are nazis. Why is reading comprehension so hard? Support whatever you want but you should rethink normalising fascist slogans out of ignorance.
As for my name, I’ve made it quite clear russia are not communists and that I do not support them at all many times. Get a grip.
Are you ok with the Germans normalising Zieg Heil again?
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Nice straw man argument.
It’s not a strawman. As the two are analogs, which the previous article points out.
You’ve made it clear from your name that you fetishize Lenin - A man who massacred more than 8 million people. You’re sick in the head, but you’re too stupid to realize it.
This uhh. This is just nonsense right? I’m not aware of Ukraine having broken any of the defensive first lines let alone past any of the dragon’s teeth lines. There’s 2 more lines beyond those. Getting past these lines is necessary before getting even 10%, let alone 50%.
Or are they talking about something that happened much earlier? That’s really confusing too because anyone that’s been watching the map trackers knows nothing close to 50% ever happened. Certainly some pushback several months ago but hardly 50% ???
This is since the invasion began, counting from Russia’s deepest gains into Ukrainian territory. So, this is everything that Ukraine has managed to do against the world’s second largest military. While currently there haven’t been any spectacular gains, the Ukraine has been steadily grinding the land back from the invaders and combined the amount now adds up to 50% retaken.
Meaning the job is half done, but also half finished.
This boundless optimism is so strange. Using something that was so long ago now for propaganda in the present is super misleading. Until we see a breakthrough of the defensive lines, literally just 1 layer of a line would be a good start let alone all 3 layers I can’t really agree with anyone that thinks much is going to happen from the ukrainian side. If/when that does happen I’d be happy to reassess.
Not really. It’s an overall view of the progress to date. The liberation of Ukrainian territory is an continuous and ongoing process and it’s half done. The only super misleading part has been thinking that Russia would give up on its latest bout of imperialism so quickly. America is going to keep supplying Ukraine with weapons because by doing so they are absolutely wrecking their #1 enemy on the cheap.
Russia is fucked. Even if they beat Ukraine their invasion has caused NATO to expand its direct contact with Russia from over 1000km. Russian threw away decades of goodwill and cause economic cooperation with the West to completely die out. Russia was on the verge of being Europe’s OPEC and all of that potential to make their nation better has been utterly lost.
No one is going to trust Russia for at least another full generation.
Mate I don’t know why you’ve said half this shit. I talked about none of that. It’s like you’re talking at me rather than with me. US weapons? Who said anything about america? It’s like you’re reading off a script instead of actually responding to what I’ve said. I’m glad that you’re really excited to see loads of people die but like, actually talk to me instead of soapboxing.
Propaganda bots have to get their propaganda out somehow. The account has posted all of 4 comments on lemmy, 2 of which are war cheerleading
Maybe. It’s a bizarre response that hardly has anything to do with what I was saying, I just assumed it was someone that really wanted to say all these things that we’ve heard from neoliberals and the media like a billion times already. Like, ok?
Lol “so long ago”. Most of it wasn’t even a year ago dude, and the article is pretty clear about the timeline being discussed.
Most of it wasn’t even a year ago
Yes it was? The withdrawal from the north was march30-april6.
I’m not a dude.
I mean looking at this video - which is 4 months old now, too - I am eyeballing it but kinda seems like yeah, it could be 40%+? So now it’s 50% maybe, sure.
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.
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This post is accurate here is a direct link to the qoute of 50 precent of Ukraine being taken back from Ruissia
50% is half of the territory, but looking at the maps, it looks like it’s less than 50%. Am I missing something?
Russia took quite a bit of territory in the northern parts early on, which Ukraine have since taken back. They’ve also taken some ground back that was lost a few years ago from the east.
No, they assumed that you won’t actually check it.
And since you didn’t check it, you can just go say it’s wrong? 😛
you can follow it here.
I’ll believe it when inside Ukrainian sources say the same thing.
Still not a no fly zone over Ukraine. Cowards.
Only Russia can establish a no flight zone at the moment. That’s not something anyone wants.
