Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his top military commander Oleksander Syrskyi have said that Russian offensive has failed to achieve its goals and that Russian army is suffering heavy losses.
In a nightly video address on Friday, Zelenskiy said Russia has recently lost 3,000 troops in Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine alone. “The Russians’ total losses in our Dobropillia counteroffensive operation already exceed 3,000, with most of them irrecoverable. That was where the Russians hoped to achieve one of their major breakthroughs along the front, but our forces are neutralizing them. And this is important,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy also disputed Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s claims that his army was achieving their battlefield goals. “Putin lies to leaders who still talk to him when he claims that the occupation contingent is reaching any of its so-called goals… For some time, they have been forced, year after year, to invent new reasons why the deadlines they announced keep getting pushed back.” Zelenskiy stressed that Putin can be stopped with concrete, decisive steps and through strength. “We are talking with America about concrete measures that can stop this war. The solutions exist. What is important is that what we agree upon is actually implemented,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi also told reporters on Friday that “the Russians’ spring and summer campaign has effectively been disrupted”. Syrskiy said Russia’s efforts to build a “buffer zone” in Sumy and Kharkiv regions failed. Discussing a Russian advance near Dobropillia in August, Syrskyi stated that Ukrainian forces had managed to isolate Russian troops along the Kazenyi Torets River, describing the move as a "trap." He noted that since the start of summer, Russian forces had been employing a tactic he referred to as "a thousand cuts" — numerous small-scale infantry assaults. According to him, the active front line now stretches 1,250 kilometers (777 miles), with around 712,000 Russian personnel engaged in the conflict across Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine was discussed between Zelenskiy and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly summit in New York on Tuesday. During the meeting, Trump displayed a stunning shift of stance on the conflict, describing Russia as a “paper tiger” for its limited progress in the battlefield. Later, he wrote on Truth Social that Ukraine could recapture all territories taken by Russia. Trump’s pro-Ukraine rhetoric was later echoed by Vice President JD Vance, who said on Wednesday that Trump was growing impatient with Putin. Russia gave defiant but restrained response to Washington’s apparent change of police, with the Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov stating that Moscow with press with the military operation in Ukraine.
Trump’s pro-Ukraine rhetoric is in stark contrast to his criticism of Zelenskiy during the disastrous Oval Office meeting in February, where he and Vance berated the Ukrainian leader for not showing enough gratitude to the United States and for not wanting peace.
