President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, snapped at Western sponsors of Ukraine dissatisfied with the failure of its summer counter-offensive, telling them to “shut up” and try to do the job themselves.
“Criticizing the slow place of [the] counter-offensive equals to spitting in the face of Ukrainian soldier [sic], who sacrifices his life every day moving forward and liberating one kilometer of Ukrainian soil after another,” he told reporters.
“I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine, and try to liberate one square centimeter by themselves,” he added.
'I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimeter by themselves,' Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, hitting out at critics of Kyiv's tactics in its counter-offensive against Russia's invasion https://t.co/emMcVcxMtQ pic.twitter.com/VCnVwYHNrD
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 31, 2023
The counter-offensive, launched later than the United States and other NATO powers would have liked, relied heavily on Western-trained Ukrainian forces equipped with Western arms and armor, but was not conducted in line with Western doctrine and has made very little progress.
U.S. lawmakers, who have approved multiple aid and assistance packages for Ukraine, have already been shown intelligence suggesting the counter-offensive will most likely fail.
Some senior NATO politicians, such as the now-former British defense secretary, have already signaled that Zelensky has been too demanding and insufficiently grateful for Western assistance but Zelensky has appeared unmoved, and even fired a top diplomat who suggested the Briton had a point.
