Russia-Ukraine war live: ‘too early to say’ whether Ukraine’s summer offensive has failed; Russian drones attack Kyiv

‘Too early to say’ whether Ukraine’s summer offensive has failed, says head of US military

It is too early to say whether Ukraine’s summer offensive has failed, the head of the US military has said.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Gen Mark Milley said:

That offensive kicked off about 90 days ago. It has gone slower than the planners anticipated. But that is a difference between what Clausewitz called war on paper and real war.

So these are real people in real vehicles that are fighting through real minefields, and there’s real death and destruction, and there’s real friction. And there’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days, worth of fighting weather left.

So the Ukrainians aren’t done. This battle is not done. They haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish. So we’ll see, it’s too early to say how this is going to end. They at least have achieved partial success in what they set out to do, and that’s important. And then the rains will come in. It’ll become very muddy.

It’ll be very difficult to manoeuvre at that point, and then you’ll get the deep winter. And then at that point, we’ll see where things go. But right now, it is way too early to say that this offensive has failed or not failed.