Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that Ukraine’s counter-offensive was going “slower than desired” as he warned observers that it wasn’t a “Hollywood movie”.
A little more than two weeks into the attack, Ukraine has recaptured eight villages in the south, but in recent days the advance has slowed.
Ukrainian forces have had “partial success” as they continue attacking on the southern front and weathering a major assault in the east, according to a senior Ukrainian defence official.
Mr Zelensky’s admission came as Vladimir Putin said Moscow had seen a “lull” in fighting, claiming that Kyiv had suffered heavy losses in the south.
However, the head of Russia’s notorious Wagner private militia, which has been fighting Ukrainian forces in the east, accused Moscow of covering up battle losses.
President Zelensky on Wednesday conceded that the operation was not moving easily as about 200,000sq km of territory had been mined by Russian forces.
“Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results right now. It’s not,” the Ukrainian leader told the BBC.
“What’s at stake is people’s lives.”
Ukraine has deployed some of its newly donated Western weaponry in an attempt to break through stubborn Russian front lines.
Pictures and videos from Ukraine on Wednesday showed British Challenger 2 tanks on the battlefield for the first time.
Britain handed Ukraine 14 of the tanks earlier in 2023, in the first donation of Nato-standard main battle tanks, but the Ukrainian military has since gone to great lengths to conceal their movements.
Classified US intelligence documents leaked on the internet in April said the Challengers were assigned to a new unit called the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.
The same documents showed the brigade was also equipped with German Marder tracked fighting vehicles and American Strykers armoured personnel carriers, suggesting a unit designed to advance rapidly once others have punched holes in the Russian defensive line.
In Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner and leader of Wagner, accused the Russian defence ministry of covering up losses in the counter-offensive.
The long-time critic of the Kremlin also warned about an inevitable retreat from large swathes of land if Ukrainian troops are allowed to recapture areas in the south
“If [the enemy] moves further than Molochny Lyman, then most of the territory that [Russia] has captured during its special military operation will be lost to the enemy,” he said, referring to an estuary south of Melitopol.
He also accused the military of hiding reports that Ukrainian troops are trying to cross the Dnipro to the east, an area that was flooded by dam water but has since dried out.
“Russia will wake up one day only to discover Crimea has already been handed over to Ukrainians,” he warned.
A popular Russian pro-war military blogger who has fought in Ukraine backed Prigozhin’s reports, saying Russia had been “losing villages”.
He also spoke of high Russian losses, citing the example of just one regiment where six to seven people get killed every day: “If you could see the total losses of those units, you wouldn’t believe those numbers.”
In Ukraine, Hanna Malyar, deputy defence minister, on Wednesday reported “partial success” in the offensive, saying that Ukrainian troops had “consolidated at the boundaries that were reached and evened up the front line”.
Offensive operations towards Melitopol, a Russian stronghold in the south, and Berdyansk on the Azov Sea, were continuing, she said.
Putin told Russian state TV: “Oddly enough, at the moment we’re seeing a certain lull,” on the sidelines of a ceremony at the Kremlin.
“This is due to the fact that the enemy is suffering grave losses – both personnel and equipment.”
He added, however, that Ukraine’s offensive potential “has not yet been exhausted: There are also reserves that the enemy is thinking about where and how to introduce.”
Putin also moved to ban the World Wide Fund for Nature, labelling it an “undesirable” organisation and criminalising its work.
Russia is escalating a crackdown, with independent media and rights groups shut down and most key opposition figures behind bars or in exile.
The prosecutors claimed the group was being used in Russia as a “cover for the implementation of projects that present security threats in the economic sphere”.
Greenpeace was labelled an “undesirable” organisation in Russia in May.
