Top general says Ukraine must adapt to reduced Western military aid
- 2 February, 00:56
While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenkiy is asking Western allies for increased military supplies to help its war against Russia, the country’s top general Varleriy Zaluzhnyi has suggested that Kyiv must adapt to reduction of this military aid.
“Our partners’ stocks of missiles, air defense interceptors and ammunition for artillery is becoming exhausted, due to the intensity of hostilities in Ukraine, but also from a global shortage of propellant charges,” Ukraine’s army chief Varleriy Zaluzhnyi said in an essay published by CNN on February 1.
The top general suggested that instead of Western aid, Ukraine must focus on technology as a crucial factor in winning the ongoing war against Russia. In his words, “new innovative approaches can turn this war of position into one of maneuver.”
“Crucially, it is unmanned systems – such as drones – along with other types of advanced weapons, that provide the best way for Ukraine to avoid being drawn into a positional war, where we do not possess the advantage,” he stressed.
The embattled general made no reference to his declining relations with Zelenskiy, nor has he addressed the speculations about his possible dismissal.
Zaluzhnyi built on his earlier remarks in November that Ukraine needed technological leap to break what he called the “deadlock” in the frontline.
Zaluzhnyi’s comments had caused a rift between him and President Zelenskiy who rejected the claims of any stalemate in the frontline. Zelenskiy also took issue with Zaluzhnyi’s remarks in the same essay for Economist in November, in which he criticized the work of mobilization offices in Ukraine and urged for drafting more conscripts into the army.
