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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg take part in a press conference after a meeting of NATO ambassadors at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Friday 9 september. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool/AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he believed the war in Ukraine “is likely to go on for a long time”, noting that “there are a large number of Russian forces that are in Ukraine and, unfortunately, tragically, horribly, President Putin has demonstrated that he will throw a lot of people into this at a huge cost to Russia and a huge cost to its future.

Speaking at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken said “we see Ukraine making real and demonstrable progress in a deliberate way” in its counteroffensive to reclaim parts of the country under Russian control. He said he did not want to prejudge “where it will go and how far it will go, but the first signs are positive”, and reiterated that the fact that Ukrainians are “fighting for their own country” will be “the most decisive factor.”

“Russian forces in Ukraine, many of them have no idea why they are there. Some did not even know where they were sent. We see reports that their morale is low. And when you don’t know what you’re fighting for, that’s something that’s not sustainable,” Blinken said.

“Now Russia has significant resources, military resources. It is acting horribly and indiscriminately. The Ukrainians are bearing an incredibly heavy cost,” Blinken said. “Even on the front lines now, in and around the region of Kherson, even as they progress, they bear real costs, but fundamentally they are fighting for their own homeland.”

The top US diplomat said he believed Russian citizens would eventually see the consequences of the war on them.

“How does Putin do, do anything to improve the lives of Russians? How does this help them? How does this ensure their own future? How does this create opportunities for them? ” He asked. “Not only is this not the case, but it is quite the opposite. It cuts Russia off from the world. It is refusing the opportunity. He is exhausting his resources, resources that will help the Russian people.

“In a closed information society that Putin created and Russia, that information doesn’t get there as quickly as it otherwise could, but I believe it will. And the Russians have to ask themselves, why in the world are they losing so many lives, trying to take another country that is not theirs,” Blinken said.