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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
«Ukraine is left alone»: Zaluzhny stated that after the Kherson operation Russia shifted to a war of attrition
Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhny, believes that after the Kherson operation 2022 year Russia switched to a strategy of attrition, in which Ukraine was left alone. He called current hostilities a war for a new world order.
Zaluzhny wrote about this in a column for Ukrainian Pravda, published 10 in November.
According to Zaluzhny, the Kherson operation was the "beginning of the end of that war in which we and, most importantly, our partners could fight:"
"We were not alone and theoretically could count on something. But already next summer this war would end with another tragedy — a war of attrition would begin, in which we would be left alone. A war familiar only to us and our enemies."
He called the operation the last battle of a "classic and fair war," because its outcome was still decided on the battlefield, "and not under the ruins of a maternity hospital".
It is precisely the Kherson operation, writes Zaluzhny, that became the basis of Russia's new attrition strategy, in which the key is terror against civilians and strikes on infrastructure.
He reminded that in September 2022 year Russia first systematically used missiles against civilian targets, including in Mykolaiv, Voznesensk, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa, and began actively using the "Shahed-136". A year later the drones appeared on the battlefield.
Zaluzhny believes that partial mobilization in September 2022 year brought Kremlin consequences it did not want: more than 300 thousand conscripts and, according to him, at least 700 thousand men who left the country.
Thus, in his view, Russia chose "internal stability" and a commercial package with high payments, so its society "basically bears no burden of the war."
According to Zaluzhny, today alongside Russian interests there is also a geopolitical one: every missile, bomb, and drone that hits Ukraine, in 90% consists of parts not produced in Russia.
Therefore, in his view, the current war is a "war for a new world order," in which countries with economic growth will gain political influence and spheres of influence.
"A war whose outcome should not be peace in Ukraine, but a new world order where the economic rise achieved by some countries will logically receive its political influence and new spheres of influence. Therefore no territories of the Donetsk region will quell these appetites, including regarding historical justice."
Then, if someone values the values earned by the blood of their grandfathers, they must fight for them. If the values of freedom, dignity, and democracy are no longer important, then decisions must be made and these values, as well as political influence for them, must be renounced. This is the answer why everything changes, and the war in Ukraine continues," emphasizes the official.
Zaluzhny also criticizes the current negotiating realities:
"These realities offer, instead of a tribunal, favorable deals and mutual trade. They attempt to repeat what happened 30 in September 1938 in Munich."
He claims that Ukraine is being forced to hand over territories, not war criminals to a tribunal, and that this could lead to "gas chambers and concentration camps" on those territories.
The war, in his view, will end only when the new division of the world into spheres of influence ends.
Zaluzhny gives the example of Israel, which has lived in a state of war since 1948 and has learned not only to survive but to live in it.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "«Україна залишилася сама»: Залужний заявив, що після звільнення Херсона Росія перейшла до війни на виснаження". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
