‘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.

  • @fluke@lemmy.world
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    758 months ago

    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.

    • @mea_rah@lemmy.world
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      228 months ago

      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.

      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?)

    • @illi@lemm.ee
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      168 months ago

      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.

      This was not because of fatigue, the assholes that were just voted in spewed Russian propaganda long before the war started.

      • @cuibono@lemmy.world
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        18 months ago

        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?

        • @illi@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          It’s hard to know which is cause and which is effect to be honest. They are saying sweet sweet lies that people want to hear and in turn, they believe them everything. It’s a fucked up and complex situation.

          Are you correct? Likely. But last there were polls on this it was around 50:50 split I think - which is incredibly bad still, but in the end it means the bad guys just managed to tip the scale. As always they worked with emotions of hate and anger these elections and those are easier to rally behind than rational thoughts. And easier to sway people with.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      58 months ago

      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

      • @fluke@lemmy.world
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        18 months ago

        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.

  • @Eheran@lemmy.world
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    168 months ago

    Good thing is: the loses Russia has are everything but sustainable. Both personnel and materiel.

    • Stantana
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      -388 months ago

      I was under the impression that Russia have slowly ground away the Ukrainian army primarily with long distance artillery. From what I’ve gathered, Ukraine have already sent boys, women, old men and those initially unfit for service to the front lines. Even those who paid bribes to avoid serving have been pulled in.

      Perhaps it’s just propaganda. Perhaps I should just read official, western media. We should be able to trust the statements of the western military, practically allies with Ukraine right? No well-adjusted member of society would accuse then of trying to sway people’s opinions about wars.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    88 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    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.

    Zaluzhny acknowledged a mistake in thinking Russia would halt the full-scale invasion after it lost more than 150,000 soldiers killed on the battlefield.

    “The American taxpayers have become weary of funding a never-ending stalemate in Ukraine with no vision of victory,” reads a recently published letter to Biden, signed by seven Republican members of the U.S. Congress.

    According to an accompanying essay he wrote, the key to Ukraine’s possible path out of the current positional warfare is to: gain air superiority; breach mine barriers in depth; increase the effectiveness of counter-battery; create and train the necessary reserves; and build up electronic warfare capabilities.

    In short, Zaluzhny said that combining old methods of war with superiority in technological warfare might let Ukraine fight to its strengths of flexibility and nimbleness.


    The original article contains 419 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @Destraight@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    But they’re ukranians. I thought we were gonna help them win? The drone grenade drop footage, the battle of that T field formation, and I thought they actually reclaimed land back? Have I been misinformed in this war?