Ukraine had hoped to start its highly anticipated counteroffensive earlier in the spring, but held off because it lacked the necessary weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“We did have plans to start it in spring. But we didn’t, because, frankly, we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons, still, more, that the training missions were held outside Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said during an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

Because the counteroffensive began later, Zelenskyy said, speaking through a translator, “it provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense. And, definitely, they had even more time than they needed. Because of that, they built more of those lines. And, really, they had a lot of mines in our fields.”