Public Rifts Emerge in Ukraine After Bleak Assessment from Top General
The Trends Journal called for immediate peace negotiations because Ukraine could not defeat the much larger Russian military
Recent comments from Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny did not sit well with some top Ukrainian officials about the country’s war prospects.
Zaluzhny, the respected military official who has been mentioned as a top possible future presidential candidate, spoke to The Economist and said:
“There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.” (Politico)
“The biggest risk of an attritional trench war is that it can drag on for years and wear down the Ukrainian state.” (RT)
Just like in WWI, the two sides have "reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate." (Axois)
“The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing, and they see everything we are doing. In order for us to break this deadlock, we need something new — like the gunpowder, which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other.”
Axios noted: Between the lines: Zaluzhny's comments on the counteroffensive break with previous, more positive assessments offered by Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
Igor Zhovkva, the deputy head of President Vladimir Zelensky’s office, said, “the last thing I would do is comment for the press… about what is happening at the front [and] what could happen at the front.”
In August, Zaluzhny, told U.S. officials who offered advice on how to conduct the counteroffensive that they don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to fighting a military power like Russia, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“You don’t understand the nature of this conflict,” Zaluzhny told these officials. “This is not counterinsurgency. This is Kursk.”
He was referring to WWII’s full-scale Battle of Kursk between the Soviet Union and Germany.
The Washington Post reported at about that time that U.S. officials believe it is clear that Ukraine will fail to achieve one of its top objectives, which is to retake the pivotal city of Melitopol, which is in the country’s south. The paper, citing a classified forecast, reported that “Kyiv won’t fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push.”
The Russian army may have constructed the greatest fortification in military history. Ukrainian troops face anti-tank ditches, “dragon’s teeth” and anti-vehicle barricades, Business Insider reported. Once they get through the minefields, they are greeted by trench labyrinths and then Moscow’s layered defensive lines.