President strikes an optimistic tone that is in jarring contrast to messages from his military officials
By Joe Barnes, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT
4 November 2023 •
Volodymyr Zelensky has denied that the war in Ukraine had reached a stalemate, after his military chief and allies said they believed the conflict was in deadlock.
“Time has passed and people are tired … but this is not a stalemate,” the Ukrainian president told a press conference in Kyiv.
Speaking in front of Ursula von der Leyen, the visiting European Commission president, Mr Zelensky’s optimistic tone was a jarring contrast to the messages coming from his military officials.
General Valery Zaluzhny this week admitted that Ukraine’s vaunted counter-offensive would not produce a breakthrough, while the British Ministry of Defence on Friday said the two sides were equally matched.
With Ukraine making little progress on the battlefield, American and European officials have reportedly begun speaking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, NBC reported.
The conversations reportedly included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.
But on Saturday Mr Zelensky rejected the idea that Western countries were pressing him to enter negotiations with Russia. “No one among our partners is pressuring us to sit down with Russia, talk to it, and give it something,” he said.
While its counter-offensive is not over yet, six months of heavy fighting have returned less-than-desired results.
As a result, analysts say the war appears to be on the cusp of a new phase, leaving Kyiv at a psychological and military turning point.
Jonathan Eyal, associate director of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said Mr Zelensky now had two choices. “They believe they could use the time of the winter to reorganise themselves and try again next year,” he told The Telegraph.
“The only other alternative is to accept they are going to end up with less territory than they had in February last year. This is equivalent to saying that although Putin failed in his major objective of occupying all of Ukraine, he has succeeded in taking another bite.”
In response to the slowdown in fighting, Russia is trying to advance in five areas across the front line.
Moscow has shown a disregard for human life or material in these offensive efforts, with Ukraine claiming Russia is suffering up to 1,000 casualties a day and losing hundreds of armoured vehicles and tanks.
But for Vladimir Putin, gains of hundreds of metres are more important than the lives of his countrymen. Any land seized now, by either Ukraine or Russia, will most likely be held for the foreseeable future, with the battlefields soon to be turned into a quagmire of thick mud by the autumn rains.
Kyiv’s problems go beyond holding on to its territory. With Russia preparing for another winter of attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukrainian officials must ask whether they are ready to weather another attempt to freeze their people into submission.
It will undoubtedly be hard, a country the size of Ukraine requires a mammoth amount of air defence systems to keep its entirety safe.
A recent shift by Russia to also target grain shipment infrastructure has left Ukraine with its major population centres, ports and the front lines to defend – diluting what surface-to-air missiles systems it has available to it.
And then, as the ground freezes, Ukraine will have to steel itself for a winter of attempted Russian Blitzkriegs on the ground.
There are also questions over how much more assistance the United States will be able to provide. It is possible there will be only more package before next year’s presidential election.
The war between Israel and Hamas, as well as a potential conflict involving Hezbollah and Iran, also only further detracts from the number of eyes and ears in each country’s administration watching Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader was optimistic that Ukraine would survive this period out of the international spotlight.
“We have already been in very difficult situations when there was almost no focus on Ukraine,” he said, but added: “I am absolutely sure we will overcome this challenge.”
But despite his optimism, it is likely that the war is devolving into a long, attritional conflict.
Ukraine will hope its efforts to destabilise the Russian state, through attacks on Crimea and Moscow, are enough to trigger a genuine collapse in Putin’s regime.
Or will Western sanctions eventually trigger an economic catastrophe, which Kyiv thinks is still years off, to convince the Russian dictator to end the war.
Both are considered a long shot.
Selected comments from DT readers:
Huw Thomas
Stalemate? The Ukrainians are highly motivated to drive the Russian filth from their land. The Russian filth are being whipped to the front line against their will by Putrid.
As Napoleon said “The moral is to the physical is as three is to one”.
Ukraine will be victorious.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
Lily Blue
3 HRS AGO
Message Actions
Frontline. How Putin lost control in Ukraine ‘disaster’.
Rear Admiral Dr. Chris Parry.
Great interview but at about the 20 minute point Chris Parry explains why he thinks Putin is no longer in charge and is probably seriously ill.
Left me wondering if Putin’s death last week wasn’t really an exaggeration?
Lily Blue
I wondered if they were testing the water for when an announcement comes, or maybe he is actually gone and the doubles are on rotation. The doubles are, for me, indisputably real.
The visit Vlad/double? made to Dagestan earlier this year was proof positive. He was in the crowd shaking hands, doing the whole ‘hail fellow well met’ thing. Practically crowd surfing. Totally out of synch with the distant leader in the Kremlin.
Either way Chris Parry has good contacts and an informed world view.
He is worth listening to.
Troll alert:
Alan Gittins
What do Ukrainians know about land borders?. They don’t do stable borders and never have.
The basic facts are these. Prior to 1957 Crimea had never been part of any same state as Kiev except in the Tsarist empire. In 1923 Lenin transferred administrative control of the eastern part of Ukraine from Russia to Ukraine. In 1946 Stalin grabbed a chunk of Poland and gave it to Ukraine. In 1957 Khrushchev transferred administrative control of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. In 1991 Ukraine declared independence. In 1992 Crimea declared itself an independent republic. In 1995 Ukraine forcibly abolished the Republic of Crimea.
Zelenskyy has a plan to grab everything that Russia gave them and everyone will live happily ever after. Good luck with that. Whatever happens Ukraine will have a 1000 kilometre border with Russia.
Ian Parker
Reply to Alan Gittins
History of Crimea for the last 100 years.
In 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.[26] It was occupied by Germany from 1942 to 1944 during the Second World War. After the Soviets regained control in 1944, they deported the Crimean Tartars and several other nationalities to elsewhere in the USSR. The autonomous republic was dissolved in 1945, and Crimea became an oblast of the Russian SFSR. It was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, on the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav.
So out of the last 100 years
Crimea has been independent for 20 years
Part of Russia for 9 years
Part of Ukraine for 60 years
Illegally occupied by Germany for 3 years
Illegally occupied by Russia for 8 years.
Phil Dawes
Reply to Alan Gittins
Again, devoid of any facts. But I guess that is your purpose. Spew disinformation, conspiracy theories and hearsay. Take a long hard look in the mirror before going to bed. I am just having lunch 😂😂
Admiral Sir Van Drake of Engleshire
Russia was allowed to take a hold of , first Crimea, then Eastern Ukraine – due to dithering and lack of action by all NATO. This is only the beginning for Europe and will have severe consequences in the future. The Israel massacre is the west’s last chance to neutralise the axis of evil once and for all, again, because the consequences of not doing so are unthinkable, believe it or not.
Mike Roberts
The West has to make a decision. The Axis of Evil only grows stronger with the passage of time. As dictatorships they do not answer to anyone and can plot and spend as they please. Never, since WW2, has there been such an opportunity to bring Russia to its knees and whilst about it their mate Iran must be stopped, at all costs, from becoming a nuclear power. Alternatively kick the can down the road and really regret it when the inevitable happens but the balance of power has swung in the wrong direction.
J Finnemore
Next Saturday, 11th November 2023, is the anniversary of the great Allied victory in North Africa at El Alamein. Churchill called it the not the beginning of the end of WWII, but merely the end of the beginning. Even that had taken three long, hard years of many defeats and losses, of fighting on alone when other democracies had surrendered, whilst some urged us to sue for peace with Berlin.
Ukraine is now a country invaded by a foreign tyrant, Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal who sees his own people as cannon fodder for his special military operation, a war that he is personally responsible for launching. The West must maintain its support for Ukraine, as it has repeated reassured Kyiv it will do.
Echoing down the years is Churchill’s call to the US when we fought on alone, as Ukraine does today, “Give us the tools and we will do the job.” That is all Ukraine asks of us now.
Vomit-inducing putinoid skank MTG is gloating at Ukraine’s agony :
Marjorie Taylor Greene Declares ‘Ukraine Scam Is Up’ Amid Stalemate:
https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-ukraine-funding-stalemate-1840929
DT:
“Marjorie Taylor Greene, a pro-Israeli Republican, put a resolution to Congress to censure Rashida Tlaib, a pro-Palestinian Democrat, as an anti-Semite. Had it passed, which it didn’t, Democrats were ready to put a counter-motion calling Greene a racist.”
What is in the wormy mind of MTG and her ilk, that makes them into fervent supporters of Israel, but filled with hatred for Ukraine?
Do they still not understand the nexus between putler, Hamas and Iran?
Do they not know that Ukraine is the only country in the world outside Israel to have a Jewish president?
Do they not know that Ukraine is holy for many Israelis?
Do they not know that Ukraine was once the most Jewish country in the world?
That was of course before the Russian pogroms and nazi holocaust.
“The Squad” represents the Hamas wing of the Dems.
The GOP has its own “squad” : the trumputler wing, which shills for putler instead of Hamas.