Zelensky says Ukraine needs time before counter-offensive

AFP :
Ukraine needs more time before beginning a highly anticipated counter-offensive against Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the BBC, as the UK prepares to send Storm Shadow missiles to help Kyiv.
Britain’s decision will make it the first country to provide longer-range missiles to Kyiv, which has been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware.
Analysts say these steps will be key to reclaiming territory captured by Russia, although the timing of the counter-offensive remains a question.
“Mentally we’re ready…,” Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC published Thursday. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet.
“With (what we have) we can go forward and be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” he said.
But the head of Russia’s Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused Zelensky of being “dishonest” in the interview.
Ukraine’s counter-offensive “is in full swing”, Prigozhin said.
Kyiv has spent months preparing to claw back ground in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.
Separately on Thursday, the US envoy to South Africa accused the country of having covertly provided arms to Russia, despite its professed neutrality in the Ukraine war.
Ambassador Reuben Brigety said the United States was “confident” weapons and ammunition had been loaded onto a Russian freighter that docked at a Cape Town naval base in December.
“The arming of the Russians is extremely serious, and we do not consider this issue to be resolved, and we would like SA to (start) practising its non-alignment policy,” Brigety was quoted as saying.
South Africa hit back against the charge, with presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya calling the envoy’s statement “a counter-productive public posture” undermining “the spirit of cooperation” between the countries.