‘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.
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.