The bad omens on the war front have been transferred to the top of power in Ukraine. The first public fracture between the two most important leaders of the country, the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Valeri Zaluzhni, was broadcast live this Saturday. Zaluzhni gave an interview last Wednesday in The Economist which has caused an earthquake in Ukrainian society. The general confirmed in the British magazine that the war is at a standstill and that “most likely” there will be no significant progress for at least a year to liberate the territories occupied by Russia. Zelensky discredited the commander in chief in a press conference by denying that the front is in a stalemate: “There is no stalemate. There are difficulties and different opinions, but we do not have the right to abandon because what is the alternative? Give up a third of our State? “Nothing will change, we know what a frozen conflict means.”
Zelensky was thus referring to the war in Donbas (2014-2022), when hostilities between the Ukrainian army and separatists supported by Russia continued for years on a frozen front that forced Kiev to sign the Minsk agreements, assuming the loss. of control of part of the provinces of Donbas. “I will say it clearly, we are not in a situation of stagnation, we had already talked about it, it is nothing new,” Zelensky insisted during a joint press conference with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visiting Kiev. to discuss the Ukrainian accession process to the EU.
Von de Leyen’s sixth visit to Kiev comes on the eve of the Commission publishing the report on the progress of the candidate countries, including Ukraine, in complying with the reforms necessary to join the community club. In the case of Kiev, the fact that the text is positive about its progress – and it will be positive, according to several sources in Brussels – will become a powerful endorsement for the Member States to give the green light to open accession negotiations in December. The president of the Commission also arrives at a complicated time, when much of the focus on Ukraine has been lost, which is now on Israel’s war in Gaza.
Less international support
With her visit, Von der Leyen, who this week has also visited the Balkan countries and before, Moldova, which are also awaiting her qualifications on the progress of the reforms to enter the Union, the president of the Commission wants to assure Zelensky that Ukraine will not be forgotten and that it will continue to receive support. Von der Leyen has praised the progress made by Ukraine in its reforms to access the EU and has once again promised that the country will receive 50 billion euros more from European funds, although that promise actually depends on the budget approval of the States. members; and they still haven’t given it. “In the face of your bravery, there is only one thing the rest of Europe can do, and that is to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary,” the President of the Commission proclaimed in a speech before the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Her words are also a clear message of support in the face of the blockade that the majority of the Republican Party in the United States Congress is applying to approve a new economic aid package for Ukraine.
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Von der Leyen also hopes that the trip to Ukraine, the Balkans and Moldova will somehow make us forget the crisis that has opened within the European Council with some member states due to her controversial trip to Israel several days after the attacks of October 7, where he met with the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu the day he launched the warnings against Gaza to demand the forced evacuation of the population to the south and began the siege, and where he did not publicly demand that Israel comply with the international and humanitarian law within their right to defend themselves from the attacks in which Hamas killed more than 1,300 people.
Collective fatigue
“No one believes in our victory like me, no one,” Zelensky said in an interview he gave on October 30 in the magazine time. This interview also caused a stir in Ukraine because the text was pessimistic about the fatigue that the president admitted detecting in the international community regarding support for his country: “The fatigue with the war is progressing like a wave. “You see it in the United States and you see it in Europe.” Zelensky rejected any ceasefire negotiations because this would only mean “leaving an open wound for future generations”, that is, postponing the solution to the problem, the Russian interest in ending the Ukrainian State.
Zelensky touched on the idea of fatigue in his speech this Saturday but, on this occasion, it was to recognize that collective fatigue is also growing at the national level. “People are tired, everyone is tired, regardless of their position, and it is understandable,” said the president, in another veiled criticism of Zaluzhni. The president has highlighted that Ukraine, unlike Russia, follows a military strategy that seeks to avoid casualties among its ranks. In the summer, high-ranking Pentagon officials criticized Kiev in the American media because they considered that the zeal to preserve the lives of their soldiers limited the possibility of progressing in the offensive on the Zaporizhia front. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has lasted five months and has only advanced about 10 kilometers.
Samuel Ramani, an expert at RUSI, the main defense study center in the United Kingdom, has summarized in a message on his social networks the fundamental difference between Zelensky’s and Zaluzhni’s speeches: “Zelensky rejects Zaluzhni’s comments, assuring that the air power will be decisive and that a breakthrough like the Kharkiv one is still possible. “What there is is a narrative dissonance between Zelensky and Zaluzhni.”
The truth is that both discourses clash. Zelensky has stated that the arrival of American F-16 fighter jets in 2024 will be “a solution” to curb Russian air superiority. Zaluzhni, on the other hand, opined that these fighters will arrive too late, when Russian anti-aircraft defenses are being increasingly reinforced. Zelensky believes that a surprise lightning offensive like the one that liberated Kharkiv province in September 2022 is possible. The commander-in-chief believes that the war of large maneuvers and rapid advances is very unlikely to be repeated, because the Russian fortified lines prevent it. and because there is a technological equality in which no contestant can prevail over the other: “The war has entered a new phase, what in the military world we call positional war, of static fire and attrition, as in World War I, in contrast to the war of maneuvers, movement and speed.” The situation, according to the general, “benefits Russia because it allows it to rebuild its military power.”
“Dead end”
Hostilities between the Ukrainian presidency and the military leadership already broke out on Saturday morning. Igor Zhovka, deputy head of the president’s office, charged this against the commander-in-chief on Telethon, the unitary news program of the main Ukrainian television stations: “If I were in the position of a military man, the last thing I would do is comment to the press, in public, what is happening on the front or what options may occur on the front, because we make the enemy’s job easier.” Zhovka added that in a conversation with another representative of Zelensky’s cabinet, he reacted in a state of “panic”: “What do I have to say? Are we really at a dead end? Is this the effect we wanted to achieve with the interview?”
The main Ukrainian media also interpreted as an affront to Zaluzhni that Zelensky decided on Friday to relieve Major General Viktor Khorenko as commander of the Special Forces. Khorenko criticized his dismissal by explaining that he found out from information published in the press and that Zaluzhni had not requested the change.
Zaluzhni was appointed by Zelensky in 2021 as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Only he can compete with Zelensky in popularity among the population: he is a myth from the first moment of the current war, due to how he secretly prepared the army in February 2022 to prevent Russian troops from laying siege to Kiev. When the president’s office ruled out the possibility of Vladimir Putin approving an offensive against Ukraine, Zaluzhni organized the defense of the country, especially the capital.
The military analysts consulted in recent weeks by EL PAÍS corroborate the conclusions that Zaluzhni expressed about the situation of the war. The commander in chief specified that the lack of ammunition suffered by his brigades will not be solved “for at least a year,” when the arms industry of its NATO allies has increased its capacity to produce projectiles. Mikola Bielieskov, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Studies, an organization dependent on the Ukrainian presidency, confirmed in a report on October 16 that the shortage of projectiles for the Ukrainian army will continue until the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025, which reduces the possibilities of new offensives at least in spring and summer of next year.
Jerôme Pellistrandi, French general and leading analyst in France on the war in Ukraine, defends Zaluzhni in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS: “It is reality, he is a pragmatic soldier and the front is frozen. The front will remain the same for months and no one can win.” The French soldier emphasizes that the main obstacle for Ukraine has been not having air power. “The war will continue,” says Pellistrandi, “because Russia does not want peace, that is why it is important for Ukraine to join the EU, to guarantee the security of the territory that Kiev controls.”
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