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‘Happy New Year! The year of our victory!’ said Volodymyr Zelensky on 1 January. After the liberation of the Kharkiv region and Kherson, Ukrainians entered the ninth year of the war with hope that they could win. Light will always prevail over darkness, Zelensky likes to say. But now the counter-offensive is nearly over, having made crushingly few gains. With western support waning, Kyiv needs to be honest about how the war is going and what it will take to turn the tide.
Ukrainians should be told that there is a shortage of soldiers and that mass conscription is urgently needed
After Zelensky, the most popular figure in Ukraine is Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the military – and he has a very different message. Fighting has hit a ‘stalemate’, he told the Economist. A ‘beautiful breakthrough’ is not imminent and Ukraine should prepare for a long trench war requiring huge resources to make small gains.
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