In a rare discussion of military casualties in the two-year war, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy freely admitted that Russia knew of Ukraine’s plans for a counterattack in 2023 even before it began.
Ukraine’s top secret war plans were leaked to Russia last year, likely contributing to what is widely accepted as a failed spring counteroffensive in 2023, but this year Ukraine has reportedly been creating decoy plans to keep the Kremlin guessing. President Zelenskiy said.
President Zelenskiy, speaking at an event on Sunday marking the second anniversary of Russia’s resumption of its decade-long invasion and occupation, revealed for the first time that Russian intelligence had succeeded in obtaining the much-vaunted plans for a counterattack against Ukraine. did. Last year’s occupier. “Our counterattack plan was on the Kremlin table even before the counterattack began,” he said.
NATO chief warns ‘bad news’ for Ukraine after failed counterattackhttps://t.co/TwFS9RzCw5
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 4, 2023
The Blue House acknowledged this off-the-cuff remark. Agence France-Presse He then told reporters he was specifically talking about Russia receiving “classified military planning information.”
Ukraine is already talking about a new counterattack for 2024. Apparently accepting the fact that leaks will occur whether there is fighting or not, Zelenskiy said his administration is taking countermeasures. He said Russia is creating a series of decoy plans so that Russia doesn’t know which one to prepare for, telling the audience: Several plans will be made for information leakage. ”
The fact that there would be a counterattack last year was never a secret. In fact, Ukraine has been boasting for months that a spring attack was coming. As spring turned to summer, the long-discussed counterattack finally came to fruition. Despite spending millions to reorganize its military in line with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) principles and inject billions of dollars in Western weapons and vehicles, it has been unable to regain any meaningful territory from Russia. There are many reasons why it wasn’t.
Among them are the fact that the Russian army had enough time to dig and lay mines before the much-delayed counteroffensive was launched, and that a year in which farmers did not cultivate the land covered large tracts of land. Weeds grew thickly in the area, making it difficult for infantry to maneuver. According to Kiev, it is Ukraine’s Western partners who are most to blame for not delivering the right weapons, not enough weapons, and not delivering them fast enough.
President Zelenskiy claims only 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in the past two years of war with Russiahttps://t.co/wFb4uYz1Eb
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 25, 2024
In addition to discussing leaks of military plans, President Zelenskiy on Sunday also made rare remarks about casualties in Ukraine’s military, claiming that 31,000 soldiers have been killed in service to the country over the past two years. This number is notable not only because it is clearly expressed, but also because it is relatively low. German NTV Note The U.S. military estimates that the number of Ukrainian troops killed is between 70,000 and 90,000, two to three times that number, and the total number of casualties, including wounded, is up to 200,000.
At a press conference on Sunday, President Zelenskiy dismissed the higher death toll in Ukraine’s official statistics as a lie and the work of “Putin and his circle of deceit.”
Ukraine frequently announces the number of Russian “invaders” it claims to have eliminated, with recent estimates putting the death toll at 400,000 and nearly 19,000 tanks and armored vehicles. It claims to go up. These figures are slightly higher than estimates by the London-based military think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, for example, which believes the number is closer to 12,000, including 3,000 tanks.
Britain says weeds and undergrowth are hampering Ukraine’s counterattack https://t.co/kKj3kHI15g
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 4, 2023
