President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the motivation of Ukrainian defenders during counteroffensive must not be lost.

"A positive counteroffensive depends on many things. We must not allow that our fighters lose motivation. For this, we talked directly to our partners today about […] armored medical vehicles. This is very important today," he said at a press conference following a meeting with the Norwegian prime minister in Kyiv on Thursday.

The president said that it is important "to not lose motivation of fighters who know that if anything happens, a medical worker, a surgeon, a doctor, a military surgeon will cover the fighters, save their life, the evacuator will work, armored vehicles will be there, that he and you are defending your country."

"However, motivation will be absolutely different if you defend your country while no hardware protects you. This is absolutely unfair," Zelenskyy said, adding that they are addressing many issues that have influence on positive results of the counteroffensive.