Ukraine has reportedly passed a major milestone in its attempts to reclaim land occupied by invading Russian forces, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has lasted nearly 17 months in length and has, by most reckonings, not accomplished much of what Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped it would. The invading forces still occupy a considerable amount of territory, especially in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine which has been central to the conflict, but with the Ukrainian military's counteroffensive now well underway, significant progress is being made to retake that land.
Speaking on Sunday with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Blinken claimed that Russia's full ambitions for the invasion "failed a long time ago" and reported that around half of the occupied territories had been retaken by Ukraine, while also stressing that the country's counteroffensive is still in its early stages.
"In terms of what Russia sought to achieve, what Putin sought to achieve, they've already failed," Blinken said. "They've already lost. The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, its sovereignty, to subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago."
He continued: "Now Ukraine is in a battle to get back more of the land that Russia seized from it. It's already taken back about 50 percent of what was initially seized. Now they're in a very hard fight to take back more. These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough."
Overall, Blinken expressed optimism for Ukraine's prospects moving forward with the counteroffensive and its goal of reclaiming occupied territories, while also admitting that the task has become increasingly difficult. While the Ukrainian military was able to launch the operation strong, dwindling munitions and Russian minefields have slowed its progress considerably. The secretary of state estimated that the process could continue for the next "several months."
"The Russians have put in place strong defenses, but I'm convinced that with the equipment and support they've received now from more than 50 countries, with the training that their forces have gotten, and many of the forces who've gotten that training have not yet been put fully into this fight, and maybe more than anything else, with the fact that unlike the Russians, Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their future, for their country, for their freedom," Blinken added. "I think that is the decisive element, and that's going to play out."
Responding to an inquiry from Newsweek, an official at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., confirmed the accuracy of Blinken's statistic. Rajan Menon, an expert on European defense matters for the Defense Priorities think tank, also told Newsweek that the figure seemed accurate.
"If you take into account the territory that Russia occupied AFTER Feb 22 2022 (that is, excluding Crimea and the two enclaves in the Donbas that Russian intervention created Donbas in 2014) then my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest Ukraine has regained just under 50% of it," Menon wrote to Newsweek. "So one can quibble with the precision of Blinken's claim, perhaps, but it's not an outlandish one that should make pulse rates soar. Since the winter set in, there have been no big gains by either side, and the battle lines have generally been static, with some exceptions."
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is among the Ukrainian figures to have admitted that the counteroffensive is progressing "slower than desired," though he and others have urged patience.
Since the operation began in early June, Ukraine has claimed to have freed eight settlements and more than 80 square miles of territory. The Russian defenders have proved dogged, even amid reports of severe supply constraints due to Ukrainian deep strikes, and persistent morale and corruption issues within the military structure.
Updated 07/25/23, 5:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include responses from the Ukrainian Embassy and Defense Priorities.
