‘There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,’ says Valery Zaluzhny.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has become totally bogged down in the trenches, according to Ukraine’s top general.
And the prospect of a long war gives Vladimir Putin and Russia an advantage, Ukraine’s Army Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny said in a sobering interview with the Economist published Wednesday night.
In the five months since Ukraine launched an eagerly awaited counteroffensive, its troops have advanced only 17 kilometers through heavily fortified and mined Russian defense lines.
The counteroffensive has already disappointed many Ukrainian partners, some of whom are now demanding an end to military aid with the war deadlocked. However, the West’s cautious provision of weapons to Ukraine has allowed the Russians to mobilize thousands and fortify positions in occupied Ukraine, according to Zaluzhny.
This is something that I’ve been thinking about and came to the realisation of the last couple of months.
And this is exactly what Russia’s objective was after the disaster of last year. Politically and strategically is the best they can hope for. Drag it out and Ukraine’s allies and the world will get tired and stop caring. They’ll stop supplying weapons, and sanctions will soften, maybe even start leaning towards supporting or feeling sorry for Russia. Something that were already seeing with Slovakia cutting all aid to Ukraine and taking a ‘war is bad, negotiate peace’ stance that is a blatant and thinly veiled Russian supportive line. Which is funny since their new govt is Russia leaning.
US are also starting to waver recently with the whole House Speaker débâcle. And Poland/Ukraine relations are a little frosty at the minute too.
That’s before you even talk about the Russian strikes on the Ukrainian/Romanian border that are being almost ignored in relation to their severity. Or the Russian mining of the Black Sea. Or Russian missiles flying paths over Maldova on their way to Ukraine. It’s a piss take. And only a matter of time unless the world pulls its finger out.
Keep in mind that Fico is lying populist. He is very vocal about ending support for Ukraine, but then ends up supporting budget that includes help for Ukraine.
He’s very dependent on EU money. Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas very correctly pointed out to reporters that Hungary often said one thing to the media and did another thing behind closed doors. Fico is exactly the same.
Any military equipment Slovakia could send is already in Ukraine. And any future financial help will be approved by Fico after making loud claims in the media how he’ll stop any and all support. Or pretend that the support is only humanitarian. (But obviously money is money, we can easily pretend the 1% of the overall budget that Slovakia sent was used for… …uh… …fuel?)
This was not because of fatigue, the assholes that were just voted in spewed Russian propaganda long before the war started.
But he was voted in by the people (I assume). So whoever voted him in didn’t mind what he was saying at the very least. That still says something about fatigue among the people if not the government, right?
And it gets worse, as people keep saying the worse seasonal weather makes further fighting more difficult. Do you what it doesn’t impede? Installing barricades and booby traps and mines. Winter could be yet another situation where Russia has relative peace to build up yet more defenses
The autumn in Ukraine this year has been unusually dry from the reports that I’ve heard, so it depends entirely on whether that continues through to and throughout the winter.
*Moldova