Ukraine 'will lose more territory if counteroffensive fails', says Elon Musk amid war

Ukraine will lose more territory if its armed forces fail in the ongoing counteroffensive, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter. Russia "would win a war of attrition" if Ukraine's military's counteroffensive did not go as planned, Musk stated, adding that Russian troops heavily outnumber the Ukrainians. "Should a Ukrainian offensive fail with heavy casualties, a Russian counterattack would capture a lot more territory. This is why there has been no major offensive," Musk said, as he made comments about the fighting ensuing between the two warring forces in Ukraine's eastern region of Donbass. 

Musk, in his previous tweets, had suggested that the two countries must achieve peace. On Sunday, he responded to ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson who said that the US should be doing more to stop the conflict over its role in sending weapons. Musk agreed, saying, "The flower of Ukrainian and Russian youth are dying in trenches, with no meaningful change in territory." 

'We would all love to see the counteroffensive accomplished': Zelenskyy

Ukrainian counteroffensive picked up a pace last week. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his soldiers have "taken the initiative" in their counteroffensive into Russian-occupied territory. "All of us, we want to do it faster because every day means new losses of Ukrainians. We are advancing. We are not stuck," Zelenskyy said in an interview on ABC News. Kyiv's forces launched the counteroffensive on June 4, and ever since, they have been overcoming the "kind of stagnation" that they faced in previous months with more advanced weaponry flowing in, according to the Ukrainian leader. 

"We would all love to see the counteroffensive accomplished in a shorter period of time. But there is a reality. Today, the initiative is on our side," Zelesnkyy added. 

As heavy fighting is ensuing around the eastern city of Bakhmut, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said that Ukraine has lost 13,000 troops since the counteroffensive began. Meanwhile, Russia's President Vladimir Putin stressed that the Ukrainian military has failed to achieve any military goals in the areas that were occupied by the Russian mercenary Wagner in May. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced last week that his units were deployed in Bakhmut after Wagner's failed mutiny in Moscow. As they advanced with the Western-supplied advanced weaponry, Ukrainian forces during their counteroffensive captured a cluster of villages in the southwest as well as declared victory over some of the areas in Bakhmut.