Zelenskyy says war with Russia in a new phase as winter looms

“There is not enough power to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up.”

Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new stage, with winter expected to complicate fighting after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results due to enduring shortages of weapons and ground forces.

Despite setbacks, however, he says Ukraine won’t give up.

“We have a new phase of war, and that is a fact,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with The Associated Press in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine after a morale-boosting tour of the region. “Winter as a whole is a new phase of war.”

Asked if he was satisfied by the results of the counteroffensive, he gave a complex answer.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second (-best) army in the world, I am satisfied,” he said, referring to the Russian military. But he added: “We are losing people, I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted. I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much.”

Zelenskyy also said he feared that the Israel-Hamas war threatened to overshadow the conflict in Ukraine, as competing political agendas and limited resources put the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv at risk.

Those concerns are amplified by the tumult that inevitably arises during a US election year and its potential implications for his country, which has seen the international community largely rally around it following Russia’s February 2022, invasion.

The highly anticipated counteroffensive, powered by tens of billions of dollars in Western military aid, including heavy weaponry, did not produce the expected breakthroughs. Now some Ukrainian officials worry whether further assistance will be as generous.

At the same time, ammunition stockpiles are running low, threatening to bring Ukrainian battlefield operations to a standstill.

With winter set to cloak a wartime Ukraine once again, military leaders must contend with new but familiar challenges as the conflict grinds towards the end of its second full year.

There are freezing temperatures and barren fields that leave soldiers exposed. And there’s the renewed threat of widespread Russian aerial assaults on cities, targeting energy infrastructure and civilians.

On November 25, Moscow launched its

most extensive drone attack of the war, with most of the 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Kyiv in a troubling precedent for the months ahead.

“That is why a winter war is difficult,” Zelenskyy said.

He gave a frank appraisal of the last summer’s counteroffensive.

“We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact.”

Ukraine did not get all the weapons it needed from its allies, he said, and limits to the size of his military force precluded a quick advance.

“There is not enough power to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up, that we have to surrender.

“We are confident in our actions. We fight for what is ours.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, responding to Zelenskyy’s comments about military aid, said the United States provided “unprecedented” support.

“I certainly can’t dispute President Zelenskyy’s estimation that they haven’t achieved the success that they had hoped to achieve,” Kirby said. “But I can assure you that the United States has done everything we can.”

US President Joe Biden’s Administration wanted to give more but faced resistance

from Republican representatives in Congress, Kirby said.

“And if we don’t get that support from Congress, the message it is going to send around the world about how much Ukraine matters and how much the United States and our leadership can deliver to our partners around the world is going to be loud and clear, and deeply unfortunate.”

Zelenskyy said there were some positive takeaways from the last few months.

Ukraine managed to make incremental territorial gains against a better-armed and fortified enemy, he said. In addition, the might of Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet had been diminished, following Ukrainian attacks that penetrated Russia’s air defences and struck its headquarters in occupied Crimea. And a temporary grain corridor established by Kyiv following Russia’s withdrawal from a wartime agreement to ensure safe exports is still working.

Zelenskyy, though, isn’t dwelling on the past but is focused on the next stage – boosting domestic arms production.

A sizeable chunk of Ukraine's budget is allocated for that, but current output is far from enough to turn the tide of the war. Now Zelenskyy is looking to Western allies, including the US, to offer favourable loans and contracts to meet that goal.

When Zelenskyy last met with Biden, members of Congress and other top officials, he made one urgent appeal - give

Ukraine cheap loans and licences to manufacture US weaponry.

Zelenskyy remains concerned that upheaval in the Middle East, the most violent in decades, threatens to take global attention and resources away from Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“We already can see the consequences of the international community shifting (attention) because of the tragedy in the Middle East,” he said. “We must not allow people to forget about the war here.”

That change in focus could lead to less economic and military assistance for his country, he said. In an apparent attempt to assuage those fears, US and European officials have continued to visit Kyiv since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

A recent AP poll in the US showed that nearly half of Americans think too much is being spent on Ukraine. An increasing number of Republicans are not in favour of sending more aid, and it is not clear if or when a request from the White House for additional aid will be approved by Congress.

Zelenskyy argued that by helping Ukraine, Americans were also helping themselves. “If resilience fails today due to lack of aid and shortages of weapons and funding, it will mean that Russia will most likely invade Nato countries,” he said. “And then the American children will fight.”

Zelenskyy has sought recently to ensure that Ukraine’s war machine is running as it should with a recent shakeup of top-level government officials, touching on another of his goals to fight graft in a post-Soviet institution rife with corruption as a prelude to joining the European Union.

The static battle lines have not brought pressure from Ukraine’s allies to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

With a budget anticipating spending 22% of the country’s GDP on defence and national security, Ukraine’s economy is being restructured around a war with no end in sight, much like the day-to-day lives of its citizens.