Kremlin’s vociferous update on Ukraine: No stalemate, Russia will win

Following Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Valery Zaluzhnyi’s remarks on Russia’s war, the Kremlin said that he was wrong to talk of the conflict moving towards a new stage of static fighting.

Russia would achieve all of its aims, the Kremlin asserted after being asking if Valery Zaluzhnyi was right that the conflict was moving towards an impasse.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “No, it has not reached a stalemate”. Russia’s aims would be achieved, he said as it was absurd for Kyiv to talk about victory over Russia on the battlefield.

“The Kyiv regime has long needed to understand that even talking about some sort of prospect of victory on the battlefield is absurd. The sooner the Kyiv regime understands this for itself, the sooner some prospects will open up,” he said.

Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote an essay in the Economist in which he said the war was moving towards a new stage of static and attritional fighting This phase could allow Moscow to rebuild its military power.

The top army chief said that Ukraine needed key new military capabilities and technology, most importantly air power, to break out of the new phase of the war. Using stark language, he described risks of prolonged, attritional fighting, writing, “This will benefit Russia, allowing it to rebuild its military power, eventually threatening Ukraine’s armed forces and the state itself.”

“Just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” Zaluzhnyi wrote, adding, “Basic weapons, such as missiles and shells, remain essential. But Ukraine’s armed forces need key military capabilities and technologies to break out of this kind of war. The most important one is air power.”

The article singled out Russia’s air power advantage as a factor that had made advancing harder.

Ukraine needed to get better at destroying Russian artillery and also to devise better mine-breaching technology, he said, asserting that Western supplies have proven insufficient faced with Russian minefields that stretched back 20 kilometres in some areas.