Kyiv
In eastern Ukraine, where another gruelling winter is descending — along with it a likely freeze in major frontline movements — one Ukrainian soldier had a grim assessment of the conflict.
The 35-year-old fighting near the war-battered town of Bakhmut went further than comments from Ukraine’s most senior military official, who conceded this week that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate.
I’ve been saying that for some time now already. Step by step we’re losing the war,”the serviceman, who uses the call sign Mudryi (Wise), said.The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us, he said in a phone interview.
The frontline between the Ukrainian army and Russian forces occupying the east and south of the country has barely moved since last November, despite repeated Russian strikes and a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Ukraine’s General Valery Zaluzhny surprised observers of the invasion this week with an unusually candid assessment that the warring parties had reached a deadlock along the sprawling front. Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate, he told the British magazine, The Economist. There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.
