Exclusive: Ukraine must adapt to reduction in Western military aid

Ukraine's army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, says Ukraine must adapt to a reduction in military aid from its main allies and focus ever more heavily on technology if it wants to win the war against Russia.

On a exclusive article for CNN presented amid a whirlwind of rumors surrounding his future, Zaluzhnyi also addressed the challenge of mass mobilization, a source of tension between him and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The general's article makes no reference to his relationship with the president, nor to reports that Zelensky is about to announce his resignation after four years in office, a move that one source said could occur within days.

Instead, the military commander seeks to develop an argument in an essay published three months ago, as well as commenting for the first time on a series of political setbacks at home and abroad.

In this first article, published in EconomistZaluzhnyi highlighted the importance of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and electronic warfare capabilities as a priority for Ukraine, before concluding: “Innovative new approaches can transform this war of position into a war of maneuver.”

Zaluzhnyi's characterization of the situation as a war of position – defined by attrition and lack of movement on the battlefield – represented a recognition that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched with great fanfare in early 2023, was effectively over.

Expectations at the start of the year were high that Ukraine could strike and advance, conducting a war of maneuver to recapture significant amounts of territory lost to Russia in 2022.

But Russia's deep minefields and heavy artillery fire, coupled with the rapid proliferation of first-person view (FPV) drones on the front lines, make stealth attacks much more difficult to overcome.

In the south, the main focus of the effort, Ukrainian forces advanced about 20 kilometers; the hope was that they would make it to the coast, about 70 kilometers away.

When Zaluzhny – in another interview – referred to the situation as a “stalemate”, Zelensky's office exploded, saying that such a statement only helped Russia.

In your article for CNN it seems clear that Zaluzhnyi sees the state of the war no differently.

Now, however, he clearly believes that Ukraine's military leaders must also take into account a series of disillusionments and distractions off the battlefield.

Indirectly, he references the United States' failure to reach agreement on a new military aid package for Ukraine, as well as the fact that developments in the Middle East that began in October have drawn international attention elsewhere.

Furthermore, “the weakness of the international sanctions regime means that Russia… is still capable of mobilizing its military-industrial complex and waging a war of attrition against us.”

He doesn't say it in so many words, but the article seems to suggest a growing sense that, ultimately, Ukraine's fate is in its own hands.

Of course, a self-help attitude is nothing new in Ukraine.

This has helped prioritize the local drone industry, for example, achieving successes both in its maritime drone program, hitting Russian naval targets in the Black Sea, and with its long-range aerial drones, flying hundreds of kilometers to hit locations in and around the largest cities in Russia.

But domestic problems are clearly a concern, as when Zaluzhnyi references the apparent reluctance of his political masters in Kiev to fully support his call for a greater mobilization of up to half a million recruits, an acknowledgment of Russia's overwhelmingly superior troop numbers. .

“We must recognize the significant advantage enjoyed by [Rússia] in mobilizing human resources and how this compares with the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve manpower levels in our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures,” he writes.

In a society perhaps reluctant to put large numbers of young men and women directly in harm's way, remotely controlled drones provide a more acceptable type of combat operation, as he acknowledges.

Technology, he writes at one point, “boasts an undoubted superiority over tradition.”

But its importance goes much further, he says, to expounding his conviction that unmanned aerial vehicles, along with other high-tech capabilities, have revolutionized not only combat operations but also the overall approach to strategy.

Only an end to “outdated and stereotypical thinking” can help modern armies achieve victory in war, he writes.