Ukraine’s embattled army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, says Ukraine must adapt to a reduction in military aid from its key allies and focus ever more strongly on technology if it is to win its war against Russia.
In an exclusive essay for CNN, submitted amidst a swirl of rumors surrounding his future, Zaluzhnyi also addressed the challenge of mass mobilization, a source of tension between himself and President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The general’s article makes no reference to his relationship with the president, nor to reports Zelensky is poised to announce his dismissal after four years in the job, a move a source said could come within days.
Instead, the military commander seeks to build on an argument in an essay published three months ago, in addition to commenting for the first time on a series of political setbacks at home and abroad.
In that first essay, published in the Economist, Zaluzhnyi highlighted the importance of unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, as a priority for Ukraine, before concluding, “New innovative approaches can turn this war of position into one of maneuver.”
Zaluzhnyi’s characterization of the situation as a war of position – one defined by attrition and a lack of movement on the battlefield – amounted to a recognition that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched to great fanfare earlier in 2023, was effectively over.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In an exclusive essay for CNN, submitted amidst a swirl of rumors surrounding his future, Zaluzhnyi also addressed the challenge of mass mobilization, a source of tension between himself and President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In that first essay, published in the Economist, Zaluzhnyi highlighted the importance of unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, as a priority for Ukraine, before concluding, “New innovative approaches can turn this war of position into one of maneuver.”
Zaluzhnyi’s characterization of the situation as a war of position – one defined by attrition and a lack of movement on the battlefield – amounted to a recognition that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched to great fanfare earlier in 2023, was effectively over.
But domestic problems are clearly a concern, as when Zaluzhnyi references the apparent reluctance of his political masters in Kyiv to get fully behind his call for greater mobilization for up to half a million draftees, an acknowledgment of Russia’s overwhelmingly superior troop numbers.
“We must acknowledge the significant advantage enjoyed by [Russia] in mobilizing human resources and how that compares with the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve the manpower levels of our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures,” he writes.
In a society possibly reluctant to put large numbers of young men and women directly in harm’s way, remote-controlled drones provide a more acceptable type of combat operation, as he acknowledges.
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