Ukrainians reel from war chief’s stalemate warning
Published: 05:11 PM,Nov 04,2023 | EDITED : 09:11 PM,Nov 04,2023
A mobile air-defence unit near Kyiv, Ukraine.
In eastern Ukraine, where another gruelling winter is descending — along with it a likely freeze in major frontline movements — one Ukrainian soldier had a grim assessment of the conflict.
The 35-year-old fighting near the war-battered town of Bakhmut went further than comments from Ukraine’s most senior military official, who conceded this week that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate.
“I’ve been saying that for some time now already. Step by step we’re losing the war,” the serviceman, who uses the call sign “Mudryi” (Wise), said. “The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us,” he said in a phone 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. Ukraine’s General Valery Zaluzhny surprised observers of the attack this week with an unusually candid assessment that the warring parties had reached a deadlock along the sprawling front.
“Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he told the British magazine, The Economist. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
The comments poured cold water on the highly-touted counteroffensive that Ukraine launched this summer after stockpiling Western weapons and training new recruits.
But the push gained little ground and journalists found last month that Ukraine was still battling Russian forces in one key village it had claimed to recapture weeks earlier.
In response to Zaluzhny’s comments, a senior Ukrainian official said the country was facing a turning point, and would need to decide on a strategy on how to win the conflict with Russia.
Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak meanwhile conceded in turn that this period of fighting had run into “difficulties”.
And Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s security council, acknowledged that, “new approaches are needed.”
Ukrainian forces have urged Western allies to provide F-16 fighters jets and long range missiles as infantry crash into deep Russian defensive lines they have struggled to penetrate.
The 35-year-old fighting near the war-battered town of Bakhmut went further than comments from Ukraine’s most senior military official, who conceded this week that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate.
“I’ve been saying that for some time now already. Step by step we’re losing the war,” the serviceman, who uses the call sign “Mudryi” (Wise), said. “The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us,” he said in a phone 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. Ukraine’s General Valery Zaluzhny surprised observers of the attack this week with an unusually candid assessment that the warring parties had reached a deadlock along the sprawling front.
“Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he told the British magazine, The Economist. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
The comments poured cold water on the highly-touted counteroffensive that Ukraine launched this summer after stockpiling Western weapons and training new recruits.
But the push gained little ground and journalists found last month that Ukraine was still battling Russian forces in one key village it had claimed to recapture weeks earlier.
In response to Zaluzhny’s comments, a senior Ukrainian official said the country was facing a turning point, and would need to decide on a strategy on how to win the conflict with Russia.
Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak meanwhile conceded in turn that this period of fighting had run into “difficulties”.
And Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s security council, acknowledged that, “new approaches are needed.”
Ukrainian forces have urged Western allies to provide F-16 fighters jets and long range missiles as infantry crash into deep Russian defensive lines they have struggled to penetrate.