Kiev’s counteroffensive has been in vain – Musk

Ukraine has lost more than 71,000 troops since early June while failing to gain any substantial ground, according to Moscow.

Ukrainian troops have suffered colossal losses during Kiev’s counteroffensive while achieving almost no results, Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk has said.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, the US tycoon commented on a post by investor and entrepreneur David Sacks, who shared an article by analyst David Pyne stating that “Ukrainian territorial gains from their much-vaunted counteroffensive are so miniscule they can barely be seen on a map.”

Musk appeared to agree with this assessment, writing: “So much death for so little.”

The message by Sacks was an update to an earlier post he made on June 20 in which he summed up the Ukrainian push up to that point, which had been underway for two weeks. He said that “it’s becoming clear that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is failing to achieve any of its originally stated objectives,” adding that Washington’s hopes that Kiev would be able to cut off Russia’s land bridge to Crimea had been dashed.

He also suggested that given the lack of progress by Ukraine on the battlefield, the hostilities were heading towards a stalemate, adding that another possibility was that “Russia will take more territory and win the war.” Musk responded at the time to the article by writing “well said.”

The US billionaire has on several occasions locked horns with Ukrainian officials over the conflict. Earlier this month, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, accused Musk of “enabling evil” over his refusal to allow Kiev to use Starlink satellites to support a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea last year.

Musk responded by saying that he had no obligation to fight for Kiev while explaining that he did not want his Space X company to “be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

Russian officials have repeatedly said that despite numerous attempts to breach Moscow’s defenses, Ukrainian troops have failed to gain any substantial ground. President Vladimir Putin recently provided an estimate of Kiev’s losses at more than 71,000 troops, 543 tanks, and nearly 18,000 armored vehicles of various types.

Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in an interview with CNN on Sunday that a quick end to the conflict is unlikely, adding that Kiev’s goal of regaining all the territory it considers its own is “a very high bar.”