{"id":275391,"date":"2023-11-07T07:19:56","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T07:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=275391"},"modified":"2023-11-09T07:41:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T07:41:29","slug":"were-losing-ukrainians-reel-from-war-chiefs-stalemate-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=275391","title":{"rendered":"‘We’re losing’: Ukrainians reel from war chief’s stalemate warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anatolii Stepanov with Daria Andriievska \u2013 AFP Nov 4, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

General Valery Zaluzhny. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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), told AFP.<\/p>\n

“The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us,” he said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s General Valery Zaluzhny surprised observers of the invasion this week with an unusually candid assessment that the warring parties had reached a deadlock along the sprawling front.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”<\/p>\n

– ‘New approaches needed’ –<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The comments poured cold water on the highly-touted counteroffensive that Ukraine launched this summer after stockpiling Western weapons and training new recruits.<\/p>\n

But the push gained little ground and AFP journalists found last month that Ukraine was still battling Russian forces in one key village it had claimed to recapture weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

In response to Zaluzhny’s comments, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP the country was facing a turning point, and would need to decide on a strategy on how to win the conflict with Russia.<\/p>\n

Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak meanwhile conceded in turn that this period of fighting had run into “difficulties”.<\/p>\n

And Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s security council, acknowledged that, “new approaches are needed.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“We have problems with too many issues. First, the quality of training for our soldiers. Second, we don’t have enough weapons or artillery,” a 33-year-old Ukrainian serviceman near Bakhmut told AFP.<\/p>\n

“We’re starved for artillery and it’s getting worse,” said the soldier, who goes by “Dan”.<\/p>\n

– ‘Prepared for the worst’ –<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Zaluzhny however did win praise in some corners for outlining measures to break the impasse, including innovation in drone and anti-artillery technology and improved demining capacity.<\/p>\n

Mykola Bielieskov, a Ukrainian military analyst, was optimistic and said Zaluzhny had outlined a fresh course path to success, should politicians in Kyiv and the West choose to follow it.<\/p>\n

“In general there is consensus that Russia will not win and Ukraine will not lose,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin, responding to the interview, had a different take.<\/p>\n

“No, it has not reached a stalemate,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.<\/p>\n

“Russia is steadily carrying out the special military operation. All the goals that were set should be fulfilled,” he added, using the Kremlin’s term for the war.<\/p>\n

In Kyiv, residents of the capital praised Zaluzhny for telling the truth, and urged Ukrainian politicians to heed his words.<\/p>\n

“We all hoped for the best, but we all prepared for the worst,” said 19-year-old Krystyna walking near the iconic Maidan square with her mother.<\/p>\n

And she warned against the consequences of not acting.<\/p>\n

“All the guys and girls who died there, and all the civilians, and all the military, everything will have been in vain.”<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to troops on the frontline, the situation is far worse than Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny\u2019s assessment that the war was at a \u201cstalemate\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275424,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275391\/revisions\/275424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}