Slow Ukraine's counteroffensive is difference between reality, war on paper - General Milley

This is reported by CNN.

“It started about five or six weeks ago, and the various war games that were done ahead of time that predicted certain levels of advance and that has slowed down. Why? Because that's the difference between war on paper and real war,” Milley said during a press briefing. “These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing real minefields and they're really dying. So when that happens, units tend to slow down, and that's rightly so, in order to survive in order to get through these minefields.”

“It is far from a failure,” he added. “In my view, I think that it's way too early to make that kind of call. I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go."

Milley also noted that Ukraine has a significant amount of combat power that has not yet been deployed in the counteroffensive.

“I will not say what's going to happen in the future, because that's going to be a Ukrainian decision as to where and when they commit their reserve, etc. Right now they are preserving their combat power, and they are slowly and deliberately and steadily working their way through all these minefields,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. 

• After the meeting, the Pentagon chief said that the main topics were the provision of air defense systems to Ukraine, the supply of shells, and training for F-16 pilots.

• During the meeting on July 18, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands announced that they would provide Ukraine with M113 tracked armored personnel carriers within a few months.

• Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov noted that the priorities of the meeting were the supply of weapons and equipment urgently needed to liberate the territory of Ukraine. The focus was on air defense, ammunition and armor. He also noted new initiatives: The IT coalition under the leadership of Luxembourg and Estonia and the coalition on demining, for which we should thank our Lithuanian friends.