Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, has said that the advance of the Ukrainian forces is not going as fast as desired, because the Russians are firmly entrenched and mined the territory.

"We'd like to get very fast results, but in reality it's practically impossible," Syrsky said in an interview with BBC.

According to him, Russia has dug in firmly, built defensive structures and mined the territory.

"Therefore, our advances are really not going as fast as we would like," he said.

According to Syrsky, Ukraine has one obvious advantage.

"I believe the unity of our military leadership and our soldiers' trust in each other is a strong point of our army," he said.