KIEV (dpa-AFX) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj doubts the impact of the Russian army’s expected spring offensive. It is clear that Russia wants to continue to occupy the east of Ukraine and the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro in the south, said Zelenskyj in Kiev. “It’s difficult for them, but they have their eyes on the Odessa region.”
But according to Ukrainian assessments, Russian forces were not enough. “Their maps do not correspond to reality – where our forces are and where their forces are,” Zelensky said, state news agency Ukrinform reported. “They can’t start the March attack the way they wanted.”
Commander-in-Chief: More territories liberated than lost
The Russian army has advanced continuously since the fall of 2023, albeit slowly and with heavy losses. However, at the beginning of the fifth year of the war, the Ukrainian defenders managed to stabilize the situation. Commander-in-Chief Olexander Syrskyj even said that in February his army recaptured more territory than it gave up.
In contrast, the Ukrainian military blog DeepState still calculated a loss of 126 square kilometers. But it is only half as much as in January and the lowest loss since July 2024.
Russia has been waging a large-scale war of aggression against its neighboring country since February 2022. Even though Moscow has lost many soldiers and the war is weakening the economy, the Kremlin is not backing away from its goal of subjugating Ukraine. This in turn defends itself with the help of European countries./fko/DP/jha
