Ukraine admits war is at a stalemate, Russia denies it
Ukraine now admits that the armed conflict is at a stalemate having become a war of positions after 617 days of fighting and almost five months of counteroffensive, something Russia denies with the argument that it will continue to push on the fronts until all its objectives are achieved.
The war "at the moment is gradually turning into a war of positions (...)", wrote the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeri Zaluzhni, in a lengthy article published alongside an interview in the British weekly The Economist.
According to the general, this began to manifest itself last summer.
This situation, he said, leads to the prolongation of the war and "carries significant risks both for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and for the state as a whole".
A stalemate that benefits Russia
"Moreover, it is beneficial for the enemy, which is trying by all means to reconstitute and increase its military power," he warned.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warned that now is not the time for the West to decrease its aid to Ukraine, because it would delay the arrival of weapons to the front line and hinder Ukrainian strategy, as already happened last year, when Western resistance to sending the modern weaponry requested by Kiev delayed the first counteroffensive to autumn.
Zaluzhni went so far as to compare the current situation to the trench warfare of the First World War.
"Just like in World War I, we have reached a level of technology that puts us at a stalemate," he said.
He admits that the troops he leads have advanced only 17 kilometres since launching a counteroffensive on 4 June in the eastern region of Donetsk and the southern province of Zaporiyia, both illegally annexed by Russia in 2022, but recalls that the Russians tried for ten months to take the town of Bakhmut in order to control a 36-square-kilometre area.
Zaluzhni admits that he underestimated Russia by believing that he could stop the enemy army just by "bleeding it dry".
"It was my mistake. Russia has lost at least 150,000 soldiers. In any other country, such losses would have stopped the war". But not in Russia, where life is worthless and where President Vladimir Putin is guided by the two world wars, in which the country lost tens of millions of people, he said.
A new-fangled invention at the time
Ukraine's offensive plans were based on an advance of 30 kilometres a day, also overcoming Russia's extensive defensive lines, which, in the case of minefields, reach a depth of 15 to 20 kilometres in important sectors of the front.
He said sarcastically that according to NATO manuals and his calculations, "four months (of counter-offensive) would have been enough to get to Crimea, fight in Crimea, come back from Crimea and go back and forth again" from the annexed Ukrainian peninsula.
He saw clearly that a technological quantum leap would be needed to break the current stalemate in a book by a Soviet major general from 1941 and in his recent visit to the Avdivka front, currently the hottest spot on the eastern front.
"On our monitors the day I was there, we saw 140 Russian vehicles on fire destroyed within four hours of being within range of our artillery," he said. He added that the Ukrainian army faces the same difficulties when trying to advance.
"The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy does and they see everything we do. To get out of this impasse we need something new, like gunpowder, which the Chinese invented and which we still use to kill each other," he stressed.
Russia sees no stalemate
To break the deadlock, the Ukrainian general said, it is necessary to gain air superiority; break through mine barriers in depth; increase the effectiveness of counter-battery and electronic warfare; and create and prepare the necessary reserves.
The Kremlin today rejected Zaluzhni's analysis: "No, (the conflict) is not at a stalemate. Russia continues to carry out its special military operation. All the set objectives must be achieved," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
In Moscow's view, Kiev must realise that it cannot beat Russia on the battlefield.
"The sooner the Kiev regime understands this, the better the prospects (for a solution)," Peskov concluded.