Head of the NATO military committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, is convinced that the actions of the Ukrainian military command regarding the counteroffensive deserve praise, and calls for refraining from comments in the spirit of disappointment in the pace of advance of Ukrainian troops.

So, at the request of the Interfax-Ukraine agency, at a briefing in Brussels on Monday, he commented on the situation on the battlefield.

“This is a real war, where people die on a daily basis. It is difficult when you are in that to see your friends, your colleagues die, it is difficult to be shot with that intensity. And I think it is never easy, so we should support continue to support Ukraine because it is very difficult time for them,” the head of the NATO military committee said.

“We should not comment on Ukraine like ‘they should go faster’ or it’s disaaponting they are not going fast.’ It is extremely difficult. This type of operation, and the way they do it is commendable. And I think they are for good reasons in some places cautious because you can burn a lot of forces if you wanna go through, so you need to find out the weak spots, what is the best position to try to get through,” he added.

Bauer stated that a counteroffensive is always a difficult operation, and 90% of the personnel of the Russian army are located directly in Ukraine.

“People should never think that this is an easy walk over [the barrier line], and it will never be. There is a considerable number of Russians in Ukraine, there are considerable defensive obstacles, sometimes it’s a couple of kilometers, sometimes it’s thirty kilometers deep, with mine fields, and serious obstacles, and there is a third line. So, to get through all of that, to reach basically the drain where there is no more defenses, in terms of infrastructure and mines, is a difficult-difficult operation for the Ukrainians,” the admiral is convinced.

“We saw in Normandy [France] in the second world war that it took to nine weeks for the allies to actually break through the defensive lines of the Germans. So, it is not a surprise that it’s not going fast, people should not talk about it like that,” Bauer added.

The head of the NATO military committee also stated that it is very difficult to predict a war, “because it involves two nations with thinking people, making plans, the other nation responding to those actions of that first nations, and that in two directions.”

“War is never easy to predict. What we see is the heroic fighting by the Ukrainians. I think the mental component in warfare, we knew it from the past, and see it in Ukraine, is extremely important. Ukrainians know what they are fighting for. The Russians don’t have a clue what they are fighting for. That difference you can actually see on the battlefield when it comes to courage, persistence, when it comes to creativity, and the will to fight,” he stressed.

Bauer also believes that 50 states are providing great assistance to Ukraine in this war with a significant amount of Western weapons and Western training.

“If Ukraine losses this war, and this is not the end of instability, that is the start of more instability. As we know Russia want to get back to the 1997 borders, which includes three Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Bulgaria. That is unacceptable for us, And therefore, we have to realize that this war is not only about Ukraine, this is about much more, and we have to continue to support Ukraine for as long as necessary because we cannot let Russia win there,” the admiral said.

In addition, the head of the NATO military committee noted that the allies are convinced that "the Russians will reconstitute." “Therefore, the [defensive] plans [of NATO] are built not on the actual status of the Russian army, but on the status of the Russian army before they attacked Ukraine. And they will learn lessons from that war as well. So, we will continue to look at them as a serious threat,” Bauer said.

“We should never underestimate the Russians and their ability to bounce back as they have shown in history a couple of times. Yes, they will need some time to reconstitute and that is one of the reasons why , I think, it is acceptable for us to take a number of years to get where we need to go without changed posture and without changed capabilities,” he said.

At the same time, Bauer expressed conviction that the most important thing for Ukraine is that we continue to support them for as long as necessary.