Ukraine is "not failing," but "moving forward" in its counteroffensive, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Ukrainian Foreign Minister said that those criticizing the speed of the Ukrainian counteroffensive should consider the soldiers fighting at the heart of it.

"How does it feel when you come back from your mission and you take back your phone, you open it, and you start reading all the smart people saying how slow you are and that you're not doing well enough? You just lost two of your buddies. You were almost killed. You crawled one kilometer on your belly demining the field. You sacrificed yourself – you took the damn Russian trench in a fierce fight. And then you read someone saying 'Oh guys, you're too slow'?" Kuleba said.

He said "our partners who are helping us, including the United States, they understand that things are moving in the right direction."

"And they understand that there's no tragedy or no kind of slow down. It's just happening because it's tough. It's a tough fight," the minister said.