Ukraine Counteroffensive Will Be ‘Very Long’ and ‘Very Bloody’: Gen. Milley

The top U.S. military officer said Friday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces is advancing “steadily, deliberately,” but acknowledged that the fight would be “very long…and very bloody.”

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, Gen. Mark Milley said Ukrainian forces were dealing with minefields, Russian Army troops and remaining elements of the Wagner Group—the private mercenary organization founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a brief revolt against the Russian military last weekend.

“Is it [the counteroffensive] happening slower than computers might have said or other people might have said? Yes,” said Milley. “What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, ten weeks. It's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very long and it's going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that. Ukraine is fighting for its life. It's an existential fight for Ukraine.”

Milley said he wasn’t surprised by the slow pace of progress in that fight, which is being waged in eastern and southern Ukaine. 

“At the end of the day,” he said, “Ukrainian soldiers are assaulting through minefields and into trenches… So, yes, sure, it goes a little slow, but that is part of the nature of war.” 

Milley said he was optimistic about the Ukrainian effort, but he acknowledged the limitations of forecasting outcomes, and drew a parallel with the June 1944 Normandy landings during World War II, when initial predictions of a swift march to Paris ran into the harsh realities of combat. 

“Look, war on paper and real war are different,” Milley said. “And in real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines. Real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives and so on and so forth.”

Milley is due to retire as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30. 

Last month President Joe Biden nominated Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown to serve as Milley's successor.