Military expert and former spokesperson of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff Vladyslav Selezniov stated this on Espreso TV."Undoubtedly, the situation in the Donetsk region remains extremely difficult. Those 20% of the Donetsk region territory that are still under the control of the Ukrainian army essentially represent a continuous hell, because the enemy is not only conducting active offensive actions directly on the line of combat contact, the enemy continues to carry out missile and drone terror, literally wiping off the face of the earth those settlements that are under our control," he said.According to the expert, the enemy acts as rationally as possible, operates within the framework of an agreed plan, "although that same plan and its time indicators have gone awry.""After all, according to assessments by some analytical centers, it was about the enemy having to capture the entire territory of Donetsk region by August 1 of this year. Now we have already passed the second half of August, but the enemy's advances are relatively small. I don't know where American intelligence gets the basis to claim that over the next two months the enemy will be able to occupy the entire territory of Donetsk region. Honestly, I don't know, because it's obvious that the urban agglomeration covering Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka - fighting there could stretch on for over a year," Selezniov noted.He gave an example - fighting in the area of Chasiv Yar has been ongoing since March 2024, where about 10,000 residents lived before the war."The territory of Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Sloviansk, and especially Kramatorsk, is much larger. There are high-rise buildings there, and there's a considerable industrial center by area, so to say that we, having stable and uninterrupted logistics, will quickly lose control over these territories, I wouldn't risk saying. I'm more inclined to think that at the current pace of the enemy army's advance, this process of combat actions on the territory of Donetsk region could stretch for at least a year and a half," the expert stated.Selezniov emphasized that the fighting is indeed very difficult, the enemy has the initiative literally on all sections of the front on the territory of Donetsk region, but the Defense Forces from time to time conduct certain counteroffensive actions.