Zelensky: "We have not achieved what we wanted, but we are confident in our actions"

On December 1, in an interview with the Associated Press in Kharkov, Vladimir Zelensky assured that, despite the failures of the summer counteroffensive, Ukraine would not surrender.

The President of Ukraine admitted in a conversation with publicationthat the summer counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not achieve the goals that Kyiv had hoped for. He noted that Ukraine has not received all the necessary weapons from its allies, and the limited size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not allow rapid progress:

“We wanted faster results. From this point of view, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact. There is not enough strength to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up, that we should give up “We are confident in our actions. We fight for what belongs to us.”

Vladimir Zelensky also noted positive results over the past few months – according to him, Ukraine has managed to achieve some territorial gains. He also said that the war with Russia had entered a new phase, and winter could complicate military operations after the summer counteroffensive:

“We have a new phase of war, and this is a fact. Winter in general is a new phase of war.”

When asked by a journalist whether the president was satisfied with the results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Zelensky gave an ambiguous answer, quotes DW:

“Look, we’re not retreating, I’m happy. We’re fighting the second (best) army in the world, I’m happy. We’re losing people, I’m not happy. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted, I can’t be happy, but also I can’t complain too much.”

Zelensky also said that he fears that war between Israel and Hamas threatens to overshadow the conflict in Ukraine as competing political agendas and limited resources threaten the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv.

And those concerns are heightened by the unrest that inevitably comes in a US election year and its potential impact on his country, which has seen the international community largely rally around it since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.

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