In eastern Ukraine, where another grueling winter is descending, a Ukrainian soldier gave a grim assessment of the conflict. The 35-year-old fighter from the area of the war-torn city of Bakhmut went further than the comments of Ukraine’s most senior military official, who admitted this week that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate. “I’ve been saying this for a while. Step by step we are losing the war,” the serviceman, who goes by the nickname “Wise”, told AFP. “The longer this static war goes on, the worse it is for us,” he said in a telephone interview.
The frontline between the Ukrainian army and Russian forces occupying the east and south of the country has barely moved since last November, despite repeated Russian strikes and a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny surprised observers this week with an unusually frank assessment that the warring parties had reached a stalemate along the entire length of the stretched front. “Just like in the First World War, we have reached a level of technology that puts us at a dead end,” he told the British magazine The Economist. “Most likely there won’t be a deep and beautiful breach.”
New approaches are needed
The comments poured cold water on a much-hyped counter-offensive that Ukraine launched this summer after stockpiling Western weapons and training new recruits. But AFP journalists found last month that Ukraine was still fighting Russian forces in a key village it claimed it had captured weeks earlier.
Responding to Zaluzhny’s comments, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP that the country was facing a turning point and would have to decide on a strategy to win the conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, the presidential aide Mihailo Podoliak admitted in his turn that this period of fighting has passed into “difficulties”. And Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s Security Council, admitted that “new approaches are needed.”
Ukrainian forces have encouraged Western allies to provide F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles as infantry get stuck in deep Russian defense lines they struggle to break through. “We have problems with too many issues. First, the quality of training of our soldiers. Second, we don’t have enough weapons or artillery,” a 33-year-old Ukrainian serviceman near Bakhmut told AFP. “We’re starving for artillery and it’s getting worse,” said the soldier, who goes by the name “Dan.”
Preparing for the “worst”
However, Zaluzhny won praise in some quarters for outlined measures to break the deadlock, including innovations in drones, anti-artillery technology and improved demining capacity. Mykola Bielieskov, a Ukrainian military analyst, was optimistic and said Zaluzhny had charted a new course for success if politicians in Kiev and the West decided to follow him. “There is a general consensus that Russia will not win and Ukraine will not lose,” he said. The Kremlin, in response to the interview, had a different position. “No, it has not reached an impasse,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Russia is consistently conducting the special military operation. All the goals that were set must be fulfilled,” he added, using the Kremlin’s term for the war.
In Kyiv, residents of the capital praised Zaluzhny for speaking the truth and encouraged Ukrainian politicians to heed his words. “We all hoped for the best, but we all prepared for the worst,” said Christina, 19, walking near the iconic Maidan Square with her mother. And she warned of the consequences of inaction. “All the boys and girls who died there, and all the civilians, and all the military, it would all have been for nothing.
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2023-11-04 18:23:00
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