The Economist featured a new Oped penned by none other than Valery Zaluzhny—Commander-in-Chief of the AFU—himself. He makes some very interesting observations, not to mention one or two startling admissions, regarding the war. The main slant of the article is diagnostic; it’s an attempt to find meaningful ways to reorient the AFU towards a winning direction, with the implied admission that this is

This one sentence from the analysis sums it up:

Overall, the gist of his final prescriptive analysis is that: “we need our army to be a completely different, new army in order to defeat Russia.”

In addition there are a number of interesting admissions made by Ukraine’s top commander such as that time is on Russia’s side.

He also fantasizes about weapons systems which do not yet exist and scifi technology such as tunnel boring plasma bots turning the tide.

As the author of this analysis puts it: The vast majority of his proposal is wishful thinking.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
    152·
    8 months ago

    I also love the bit where he talks about needing new technology that doesn’t exist, e.g:

    Technology is the answer. We need radar-like sensors that use invisible pulses of light to detect mines in the ground and smoke-projection systems to conceal the activities of our de-mining units. We can use jet engines from decommissioned aircraft, water cannons or cluster munitions to breach mine barriers without digging into the ground. New types of tunnel excavators, such as a robot which uses plasma torches to bore tunnels, can also help.

    Basically, when you cut through all the spin what he actually says is that the offensive was a failure and that Ukraine is losing the war. There is no realistic way he can get any of the things he says he’d need to win the war because the west simply doesn’t have the capacity to produce them. Even if the west got serious about this, it would take years to build the factories, train the workers, and create supply chains for all this. Ukraine doesn’t have years.

    The impression I get from the original interview is that he’s basically making excuses for why he failed, and he’s covering his ass for when he ends up getting sacked.