AMERICAN CEMETERY, NORMANDY, France (AP) — The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, said Tuesday that fighting in Ukraine has increased, but cautioned against reading too much into day-to-day operations.
“There is activity all over Russian-occupied Ukraine and the fighting has increased a little bit,” Milley told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France, the final resting place of nearly 9,400 soldiers who died 79 years ago during the D-Day Allied invasion on June 6, 1944.
Milley said it was up to Ukraine to announce whether its counteroffensive campaign has formally begun, but said Ukrainian troops are ready for this fight.
“Our estimate is that the Ukrainian army is well prepared for whatever they do: they choose to fight offensively or defensively,” he said. “They are well prepared.”
But he also warned that as time goes by the fights will vary.
“Like the Battle of Normandy or any other major battle, war is a give and take,” Milley said. “There’s going to be days where you’re going to see a lot of activity and there’s going to be days where you’re going to see very little activity. There’s going to be offensive actions and defensive actions. So this is going to be a back-and-forth battle over a considerable period of time.”
The US and its allies and partners have been pouring billions of dollars in military weapons into Ukraine and have set up a wide range of combat training so that Kiev’s forces can maintain this equipment and prepare for a counteroffensive as expected
Milley spoke as Ukrainian forces are widely seen as pushing forward with a new wave of patchy fighting along more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) of front lines in the east and south. Troops were moving to end what has been a winter battlefield stalemate and break through Russian defensive lines in southeastern Ukraine after 15 months of war.
Highlighting that struggle was Tuesday’s stunning collapse of a dam in southern Ukraine, causing flooding, endangering the country’s barn crops and threatening drinking water supplies. Both sides blamed the other as they scrambled to evacuate residents.
The increase in fighting comes after a long winter of preparation. At times, almost weekly, the US and its allies pumped millions of rounds of artillery and other munitions into Ukraine, along with increasingly lethal air defense systems, including batteries of Patriot missiles, tanks, drones and other weapons.
Looking back on the past year, Milley said Ukrainian forces defended their country well from the start of the invasion in February until mid-summer, then conducted two successful offensive operations in Kharkiv and Kherson. Milley said he believes training and weapons supplied by allies over the winter have prepared Ukraine for the coming fight.
“A lot of training went into this, a lot of supplies, a lot of ammunition was provided by other countries to include the United States,” Milley said. “They’ve trained now, we think pretty well about combined arms operations. So I think they’re ready for what they think they have to do, no matter what kind of operation they’re doing.”
Standing in front of rows of white crosses at the cemetery, Milley spoke just minutes after he and other US and allied military leaders laid wreaths and greeted the gathering of the last surviving World War II veterans attending the ceremony . The veterans, some of whom had stormed Omaha Beach, were almost all in their late 90s. But as Taps played, many rose from their wheelchairs to stand for the tribute.
Reflecting on their struggle, Milley said there is a thread of similarity in the wars.
“You really can’t compare this campaign to what’s going on in size, scale and scope … in Ukraine. But the purpose is very similar, which is the Ukrainians, obviously their goal is to liberate Ukraine occupied by the Russians Milley said.
