The Armed Forces of Ukraine are approaching the moment when their counter-offensive actions against the Russian occupiers can already gain momentum, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, speaking via video link at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday.

"Ukraine is not retreating, but progressively liberating its territories, which is very important," Zelenskyy said, answering a question about the course of the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

The President recalled that after the liberation of Kharkiv region last autumn, Ukraine began to form military brigades and expected to prepare and launch a counter-offensive in the spring of 2023. However, as he noted, "at that time, frankly, we did not have enough ammunition and weapons, we did not have enough properly trained brigades that could properly handle Western weapons."

In this regard, Zelenskyy noted, "we started it (counter-offensive) a little later. And it will be a generally accepted truth, understandable to all experts, that this gave Russia time to mine our lands and build several defensive lines."

"They had even more time than they needed, they built more of these lines. And indeed they had a lot of mines in our fields. Due to this slower pace of our counter-offensives, we did not want to lose our people, our personnel. And our servicemen did not want to lose equipment, so they were quite careful with offensive actions," the head of state said.

"Nevertheless, I would say that we (now) are approaching the moment when appropriate actions can gain momentum, because we are already passing through some mining sites and clearing these areas," the president stressed.

In addition, Zelenskyy drew the attention of the forum participants to the fact that one of the key difficulties during the launch of the counter-offensive was the lack of mine-clearing equipment, however, as he noted, now Ukraine is being helped with such special equipment by its partners.