Zelensky says Ukraine still needs more time to prepare its counteroffensive (Picture: EPA)

Ukraine still needs ‘a bit more time’ to launch its much-anticipated counteroffensive as the country waits for the delivery of pledged military aid, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

The Ukrainian president said it would be ‘unacceptable’ to launch the assault now because too many lives would be lost trying to expel Russian forces from the war-torn country.

‘With [what we already have] we can go forward, and, I think, be successful,’ he told the BBC.

‘But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait.’

Ukraine has formed twelve new military brigades to liberate its territory from Russia (Picture: Shutterstock)

Ukraine has reportedly formed 12 new military brigades to carry out the highly-anticipated offensive, nine of which have been equipped and trained by Nato allies.

Senior Nato officials have said 98 per cent of weapons shipments promised by the transatlantic military alliance’s members have been delivered to Ukraine.

However, Zelensky says the Ukrainian army still needs ‘some things,’ before it can begin the operation, particularly armoured vehicles, which ‘arrive in batches.’

Operational details of the plan are top secret and are only known to a small group of advisers around Mr Zelensky, in order to maintain an element of surprise when the assault is launched.

The outcome of the counteroffensive is expected to be a critical turning point in the war, which will determine whether Ukraine can successfully liberate its territory or whether it will be forced to meet Russia at the negotiating table.

The president said Vladimir Putin was striving to reduce the war to a ‘frozen conflict’ in a warning over the prospect of future peace talks being promoted by Kyiv’s Western allies.

‘Everyone will have an idea,’ Mr Zelensky said. ‘But they can’t pressure Ukraine into surrendering territories. Why should any country of the world give Putin its territory?’

Britain announced on Thursday it would be supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles (Picture: Getty)

Ukrainian authorities have tried to lower expectations of a breakthrough, publicly and in private.

Earlier this month, a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the country’s leaders ‘understood that [they] needed to be successful’ but that the assault should not be seen as a ‘silver bullet’ in a war now in its 15th month.

However, during the wide-ranging interview, Zelensky dismissed apparent fears that military aid for Kyiv could soon dry up ahead of the US presidential elections.

‘Who knows where we’ll be?’ he said. ‘I believe we’ll win by then.’

Russian forces, meanwhile, have fortified their defences along a frontline that runs for 900 miles (1,450km) from the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.

Moscow’s main target for months has been Bakhmut, which it has yet to fully capture despite the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War Two.

However, Kyiv says it has pushed Russian forces in the city back over the past several days.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner private army which has led the fight in Bakhmut, on Thursday said Ukrainian operations were ‘unfortunately, partially successful’.

He called Zelensky’s assertion that the counteroffensive had not yet begun ‘deceptive’.

The news comes as Britain said it was sending long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles that would give Kyiv the ability to strike deep behind Russian lines.

The missiles ‘are now going into, or are in, the country itself,’ Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told parliament in London, adding the missiles were being supplied so they could be used within Ukraine.

Western countries including the U.S. had previously held back from providing long range weapons for fear of provoking Russian retaliation. Wallace said Britain had weighed the risk.

The Kremlin earlier said if Britain provided these missiles it would require ‘an adequate response from our military’.

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The Ukrainian President says he does not want to rush the much-anticipated counteroffensive.