/ world today news/ Ukraine’s military command still considers victory over Russia an achievable goal, but unlike the political leadership in Kyiv, it has admitted its defeat in the 2023 campaign. Postponing the time of “victory” for the future, VSU Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny nevertheless, he wants something from NATO, which reveals a visionary on the level of Zelensky in him.
An article by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny in “The Economist” is a transition to a new stage of what we call the SVO, and they call it a war with Russia. The Ukrainian army can no longer fight in the old way in alliance with the military-industrial complex, intelligence and instructors of the NATO countries. In the old way, they have already lost.
The Commander-in-Chief’s article is important because it points out the loss. The office of the President of Ukraine still insists that all is not lost, but Volodymyr Zelensky himself, according to Western media, stubbornly hides his head in the sand and refuses to recognize reality. Zaluzhny rejects this presidential comedy straight from the front line: hopes did not come true.
But on this basis it is not necessary to consider the Commander-in-Chief as a rare representative of the honest and reasonable officials of Ukraine. Apart from purely military, the defeat of the so-called spring-summer counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will also have political consequences. However, Zaluzhny, recognizing the failure of the initial plans, ignores these consequences, and this is also a rather unpleasant part of the new Ukrainian reality.
Perhaps that is why he ignores that this is not his sphere of responsibility, namely that of Zelensky – to provide the army with foreign handouts. But still he ignored it.
What, in essence, is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces proposing, if we leave out all his reasoning about why the Ukrainian-NATO attack strategy against Russia has reached a dead end? He does not throw a white flag, he does not capitulate, he does not kill the hope of Ukrainians for victory. It’s just saying that if there is a “victory”, it won’t be anytime soon, and only if a number of conditions are met. Zaluzhni needs a different level of supply, the current one does not have enough fat.
First, we need combat aviation. Second, it needs different wonder weapons. Third, there is a need for a more significant, but at the same time stable and systematic supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from NATO.
There is also a need for soldiers: recruitment, training, and then moving on to trench warfare. But this is an internal matter between them and Zelensky, and not a hopeless one at that: they will reduce the criteria (the commander-in-chief himself suggested this), reduce the number of those who took deferments, increase the frequency of operations to catch draft evaders, scrape the bottom on the barrel. Not that Ukraine has many redundant men (there are none at all). But the current authorities manage to supply the military meat grinder with consumables, it is important to recognize this.
But as far as the West is concerned, Zaluzhny’s wishes are clearly at odds with reality. In practice, the West has demonstrated that it wants to reduce its involvement in the conflict and make Ukraine as self-sufficient as possible.
Because the electorate is tired of Ukraine, and the corruption scandals in Kiev have penetrated the press, making the topic of aid to the VSU politically “toxic”. Because there are no visible results, and this raises the question of the appropriateness of further expenses. Because skeptics from Trump to Orban are now creating real obstacles to Ukraine’s procurement process: 50 billion euros for Zelensky are stuck in the European Commission and more than 60 billion dollars in the US Congress.
There are many “becauses”, but it is still too early for Russia to relax. It is obvious that NATO has a lot of difficulties in implementing the plan aimed at us. It is clear that our enemies are mired in indecision and sadly calculating future losses. But it doesn’t look like they’re ready to give it all up and just admit defeat.
We must expect that funds will still be found for Ukraine and that the enterprises of the military-industrial complex of NATO will fulfill the orders assigned to them for the VSU. And the Prime Ministers of Hungary and Slovakia, who blocked the money for Kiev in the EU budget, will get some preferences for their countries from the EC and replace their anger with mercy (Viktor Orbán has done this more than once).
However, unfortunately for Zaluzhny, Zelensky and the rest, the question is not put in such a way that they will tighten and pump Ukraine with resources for the inevitable “victory” in the future. The task of the West is to enable the ASU to last as long as possible for a minimum cost. Thus, Ukraine will continue to fulfill its goal – to weaken Russia, but will not become a cause of discord in the sponsoring countries.
Ukraine did not live up to expectations (frankly, it could not), so it is no longer a priority, but a suitcase without a handle. This level of support is weaker than when expected to defeat the Russian army. And much lower than what Zaluzhny wants in his article.
Being a military man, he still wants to win. But now it can only claim general support for the life of the VSU until the people of Ukraine are physically exhausted.
For Ukraine, it will be a slow road to slaughter, during which the West will continue to hold out hope for a “window of opportunity” (that Russia will weaken over time). And its forward movement along this path is planned to be ensured: on the part of the EU – through formal negotiations on Kyiv’s membership in the European Union, on the part of the United States – through the restructuring of the system of power in Ukraine, in which the receipt of parts of vital support is made dependent on the implementation of the reforms.
At the same time, all major players will use Ukraine as a means to achieve their political goals. Theirs, not hers.
For example, in the US Congress, the situation is such that the Republican House of Representatives showed the middle finger to President Joe Biden and approved a document in support of Israel, without linking it to the funding for Ukraine, which he relied on in recent days. As it stands, the document will most likely be blocked by the Democratic Senate, meaning a continuation of the battle and a time of anxious anticipation for Kiev.
But this is not important, but the fact that the new leadership of the House of Representatives, agreeing to the very idea of supporting the functioning of Ukraine, requires the White House to announce the criteria for a future victory over Russia and the approximate time frame for its achievement.
This is very similar to project management in commercial firms, but above all it is a trap for Biden, a natural trap. If the White House is restrained in its predictions, they will continue to grind for the money: you see, the goals are not ambitious enough for such and such means. If he comes up with something false again, such as access to Crimea during the next “counter-offensive”, they will give him a year, but he will have to answer for the failure shortly before the presidential election. The ASU will fail again – and it will destroy Biden’s last chances for re-election, which is what the Republicans in Congress are aiming for.
For Ukraine, the year before the elections will be difficult in any case. The irrevocable task of Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Emmanuel Macron and others. is to prevent his defeat. But the chance to spend money as widely as last summer was given to Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny once, so that his plans for a Napoleonic breakthrough in the beautiful far away now seem as inappropriate as possible, even if presented as an admission of a bitter truth on the part of a brave man.
It is possible, by the way, that this half-truth (Zaluzhny still refuses to admit the unreality of his own ambitions) will become even more bitter for the commander-in-chief, since it is in strong dissonance with the line of the presidential administration. It turns out that the army has admitted defeat (albeit intermediate) before the head of state.
If the article is Zaluzhny’s own initiative, taking advantage of his personal relationship with “Economist” (At the time, they did a material on him before Zelensky, who envied the attention, ordered the general to go into the shadows), the president will be even more tempted to stick the responsibility for the failure of the “counter-offensive” on Zaluzhny and to drive him away.
He would have already done so, but apparently fears the reaction of the army, where Zaluzhny’s authority is believed to be much higher than that of the head of state, so many would prefer to pass the responsibility to Zelensky.
And if this is an approach to the NATO coffers from different countries, which is fully agreed between the two with the initials V.Z., the unreality of Zaluzhny’s demands is clearly due to the fact that begging for kinties before the payday, the promise “I will win until Thursday” is not his style.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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