Ukraine’s military chief predicts new Russian offensive against Kiev

In an open campaign for more military aid from the West, Ukraine’s president, the commander of its armed forces and its army’s head of land operations have painted a bleak picture of Russia’s chances of winning the war that began in February.

They gave interviews to the British magazine The Economist, which published them this Thursday (15). General Valeri Zalujni, commander of the Forces, said Russia’s campaign to destroy Ukraine’s power grid could affect the morale of its troops.

“It seems to me that we are at the limit. That’s when the soldiers’ wives and children start to freeze. What will be their mood? Without water, light and heat, can we talk about preparing reserves to continue fighting?”, he said.

Zaluzhni and his subordinate Oleksandr Skirski, the general who successfully defended the capital from the initial Russian assault, say the Russians’ mobilization of more than 300,000 troops in record time was effective. “I have no doubt they will make another attempt in Kiev,” he said.

Such an attack, or a massive offensive in the Donbass (east of the country), could take place at any time from late January to March, the military said. To the magazine, they emphasized that the usual perception in the West, fueled incidentally by Chief Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian propaganda, that Russia is failing, is wrong.

“The enemy should not be overlooked. They are not weak, and they have great potential in terms of manpower,” Skirski said. He says that the Russians are not very well equipped, but, as in the Second World War, they use a very large capacity to renew forces.

Its commander recalls that the training program developed by the United Kingdom for Ukrainian soldiers can generate 30,000 reinforcements in 18 months. Russia has mobilized ten times as many people and is preparing them to go into combat in two, three months.

In the view of the military, the campaign against civilian infrastructure would be a way for Moscow to buy time for its renewed offensives in winter — when the mud and snow still melted from the end of the year harden and facilitate the transit of troops and weapons.

Realism, of course, is meant to sensitize the West. This week, it was leaked to the American press by the government that the Joe Biden administration is finalizing legal studies to provide Patriot air defense batteries to Ukrainians.

It is a complex step, because they are difficult to manage, which suggests that a quick delivery would come with Western operators — bringing NATO (the Washington-led military alliance) into the actual war, which implies a huge risk of escalation.

Furthermore, there are few Patriots available among western allies, and their operation is expensive. It seems to make more sense to look for more missiles to use on the Soviet S-300 anti-aircraft systems that Ukraine operates, of which at least 36 have already been destroyed according to the Dutch monitoring website Oryx.

The generals say that air defense is the focus now, but not only. “I need 300 tanks,” said Zalujni. Ukraine had, before the Russian invasion, 987 of these tanks. According to Oryx, which uses only verifiable public information, Kiev has already lost 435 tanks, including some of the 230 passed on by Poland.

The difficult framework does not change the official discourse. President Volodomir Zelensky told the publication that he maintains his position of only negotiating with Russia if all occupied areas of his country are liberated.

The crux of this assertion is that it includes Crimea, annexed in 2014, and the areas of Donbass under Russian control since that year, in the wake of the civil war that followed the overthrow of a pro-Moscow government in Kiev.

On the 5th of last month, in the midst of the American effort to try to open channels of negotiation, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated that the talks should begin as soon as Russia withdraws its soldiers from the areas it occupied from February 24th — or i.e. excluding Russian-speaking areas under Moscow control since 2014 from the precondition.

In the field, Thursday morning was marked by attacks exchanged by both sides in Donetsk, one of the provinces of Donbass. There was also a big explosion in the Russian city of Kursk, whose air base had been attacked by Ukraine last week, but its nature was not clarified: a Zelensky adviser speaks of a drone attack, without assuming it, and the local government said it was air defense action.