 Ukraine has demonstrated progress in its counteroffensive against Russian forces by simply proving it can push back a better-armed and numerically superior enemy, a senior Ukrainian official said on August 22. The operation, now in its third month, has run up against vast Russian minefields and trenches, and a US official said on Friday that it looked unlikely Ukraine would be able to recapture the occupied southern bastion of Melotopol. But, in a Reuters interview, Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malier pushed back on the idea Kiev was making slow progress and said it had effectively defied military doctrine by attacking an enemy that has a numerical advantage in manpower and weaponry. She said she was unaware of any Western pressure being exerted on the Ukrainian military to speed up the pace of operations and question how best to even calibrate the tempo with which it is unfolding. It's incorrect to measure this advance by meters or kilometers, she said. What's important is the very fact that despite everything, we're moving forward even though we have fewer people and fewer weapons. Malier pointed to the grinding attrition in the east where she said Russian forces fire 400,000 to 500,000 artillery shells in the space of a week while Ukraine uses 10 times less that number. Needless to say, in order to reach parity with them we need help, she said, acknowledging the vital role of Western military aid in the war. Armed with Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, Kiev launched its long-touted counter-offensive in early June, retaking a string of villages so far, but no major settlements. We have weapons and military equipment. Together with that, we release our land and move forward. It's incorrect to measure this advance by meters or kilometers. What's important is the fact that despite everything, we're moving forward even though we have fewer people and fewer weapons. The whole world is not ready for such a scale war. We should understand that both of us and our partners are adapting to our systems at this time, starting with the law and ending with the production of military equipment and weapons under such a war. At the beginning of the Great War, we even reached the point that the law of many countries needed to be changed in order to help. And we are definitely grateful to the countries that even went to such unprecedented steps to help us. We don't have enough weapons for now, but we can see it through the number of shots at the east, where the enemy of Russia is actually advancing in four directions. And we can stop them in order to understand what it means to stop them. They can shoot in a month, in a week, from 400 to 500,000 ammunition at the east. We can shoot at the answer in 10 times less. Today, we lack weapons that would give us the opportunity to enter our temporarily occupied territories in order to free them from the military objects of the enemy there. And, in particular, the combat aviation is needed in order to free our territories and to use them on the territory of Ukraine. And we, on the one hand, do everything to do it as quickly as possible.