In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that establishing a ceasefire in the war with Russia while allowing it to retain control of parts of Ukraine would result in a prolonged conflict.
“Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest,” Zelenskyy stated. “They will not use this pause to change their geopolitics or to renounce their claims on the former Soviet republics,” Zelenskyy added.
According to Zelenskyy, Russia would use the ceasefire to regain strength before resuming its offensive against Ukraine. Russia would “rest and in two or three years, it will seize two more regions and say again: Freeze the conflict. And it will keep going further and further. One hundred percent,” said Zelenskky.
According to him, Ukrainians believe that “all territories must be liberated” before negotiations can begin. “Our people are convinced we can do it. And the faster we do it, the fewer will die.”
“We would prefer to de-occupy in a way that’s not military and to save lives,” Zelenskyy continued. “But we are dealing with who we are dealing with. Until they get smashed in the face, they won’t understand anything.”
Zelenskyy’s remarks came after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine earlier this week of preventing a March drought peace deal. In response, Ukraine’s president slammed Putin, telling The Wall Street Journal, “He came here without talking, killed people, displaced 12 million, and now says Ukraine doesn’t want to negotiate.”
“They just murder people, destroy cities, enter them, and then say: ‘Let’s negotiate.’ With whom can they talk? With rocks? They are covered in blood, and this blood is impossible to wash off. We will not let them wash it off,” Zelenskyy added.
In a recent interview with Insider, Fiona Hill, the Trump administration’s top Russia expert on the National Security Council, expressed similar concerns to Zelenskyy.
Despite Russia’s problems with manpower and military equipment maintenance, Hill emphasised that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goals in Ukraine have not changed. “Putin wants to find a way to subjugate Ukraine in some way,” Hill said.
“He might take what he can get in the short-term and medium-term. One of the big risks is that if he manages to get some kind of nominal control of the Donbas — Donetsk and Luhansk. But then there might be some kind of effort to create an operational pause for regrouping,” Fiona Hill added, “And then it just results in a renewal of conflict when the Russians feel that they’re in a good position to press ahead again.”
A number of Western officials and Kremlinologists have argued that Russia is losing momentum in Ukraine, which could present a significant opportunity for Kyiv. The chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Richard Moore, said on Thursday that Russia’s forces appeared to be running out of steam, which could allow Ukrainian forces to “strike back.”
Moore said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, “They will have to pause in some way, and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the US Army in Europe, told Insider earlier this month that Russian forces are “exhausted.” According to Hodges, Ukraine could push Russia back to pre-war borders by 2023.
However, officials have also stated that the conflict has devolved into a grinding war of attrition that is taking a heavy toll on both sides.
According to CIA Director William Burns, who also attended the Aspen Security Forum this week, the latest US intelligence estimates place the Russian death toll at around 15,000, with an additional 45,000 injured. However, Burns continued, “The Ukrainians have suffered as well — probably a little less than that. But, you know, significant casualties.”
After failing to take Kyiv in the early days of the conflict, Russia shifted its focus to Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Prior to Russia’s large-scale invasion in late February, fighting had been raging in that region for eight years between Ukrainian forces and Kremlin-backed rebels. By the time Moscow launched its so-called “special operation” in Ukraine, the insurgents had already taken control of roughly one-third of the Donbas.
Russia has made incremental progress since shifting the focus of the war to the Donbas. By early July, Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk, one of the two provinces that comprise the Donbas.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said that Russia has only advanced six to ten miles in the last few months.
“The cost is very high. The gains are very low,” Milley stated. “The Ukrainians are making the Russians pay for every inch of territory that they gain. Advances are measured in literally hundreds of meters — some days you might get a kilometer or two from the Russians, but not much more than that.”
The US-supplied weapons to Ukraine, particularly the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), appear to have made a difference in terms of slowing the Russian offensive. The Pentagon announced this week that it would send four additional HIMARS systems to Ukraine, in addition to the 12 already provided.
