The White House and several of our NATO allies continue to try to paint a rosy picture of the Ukrainian counteroffensive despite multiple reports that the effort has largely stalled. Some minor bits of territory have been retaken in the Southeastern part of the country, it’s true. But progress has recently been measured in terms of neighborhoods or even individual houses, rather than cities or entire oblasts. And now an unofficial deadline is approaching that should probably be accompanied by a warning from John Snow: Winter is coming. While still trying to give things some positive spin, General Mark Milley spoke to the BBC this week and said that the Ukrainian forces probably have 30 or at most 45 days of decent weather left before the prime “fighting season” ends. And Russia is showing no signs of throwing in the towel and going home.

Ukraine has little more than 30 days left of fighting before the weather hinders its counter-offensive, the top-ranking US military officer says.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Gen Mark Milley said colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to manoeuvre.

He admitted the offensive had gone more slowly than expected. But he said: “There’s still heavy fighting going on. The Ukrainians are still plugging away with steady progress.”

Over the course of this interview, Milley appeared to let the mask slip a bit on a couple of questions. He was still saying optimistic things, such as noting that Ukraine’s forces are “still plugging away” and “making progress.” But he also noted that this was always going to be brutal and we need to temper our expectations. “I said at the very beginning of this [war] that this was going to be long, slow, hard, and high-casualty-producing, and that’s exactly what it is.”

Even more to the point, when the reporter asked Milley if the counteroffensive had “failed,” he didn’t say “no.” Instead, he said that it was “too soon to say.” So it would appear that a failed counteroffensive is still in play, at least for this season.

And it’s the changing of the seasons that has most analysts concerned. The start of the counteroffensive this year was delayed for several reasons, but one of them was the late arrival of warmer, dryer weather that allowed the ground to firm up. The rainy season is approaching quickly and many of the combat areas will go back to being soft and muddy. That makes any advances employing wheeled vehicles such as armored personnel carriers more difficult if not impossible. Tanks with tracks may do a bit better, but even that becomes problematic. And the Russians have been blowing up Ukraine’s tanks with drones at an alarming pace.

As the bad weather settles in during October and November, most of the fighting is going to have to be done on foot. That will tend to slow any advances even further and probably lead to even higher casualty rates, as Milley originally predicted. And despite the repeated claims we’ve heard that Putin is “running out of troops,” there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that on the battlefield. They may not be great troops or have much experience, but cannon fodder still goes a long way in a war zone. And Russia has been recruiting troops from neighboring nations like Belarus, offering cash bonuses for them to sign up to fight.

There was an interesting diversion from the subject of the counteroffensive near the end of this interview. Milley was asked about Donald Trump and whether or not our military “would serve a commander-in-chief who was in jail.” His answer was diplomatic. He said that the military’s allegiance was “to the Constitution” and that “we will be faithful always to that Constitution regardless of who occupies the White House.” I don’t always agree with General Milley as regular readers no doubt know, but that sounded like the right answer to me. As to his own potential future in politics, Milley doesn’t have one. The only title he plans to run for when he retires this month is “Best Grandfather.” Good luck to you, sir, and thank you for your service.