One year ago, to this very day, Russia was invading Ukraine, attacking Kyiv and other places in Ukraine. Explosions shook the capital of Kyiv, Kramatorsk, the headquarters of the Ukrainian army in the east, Kharkiv, the country’s second metropolis located near the border with Russia. They also echo in Odesa, on the Black Sea, as well as in Mariupol, the main port of the country.
“We made the decision to start a special military operation.” were the words of Vladimir Putin, who launched, on February 24, 2022, the invasion of neighboring Ukraine, triggering the most serious conflict on the European continent since the Second World War, according to an AFP analysis.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted this morning that it had been a year of “pain and sorrow” but also of unity.
Zelensky’s adviser: Russia is not capable of supporting offensive
Mihailo Podoliak, adviser to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in an interview for Digi24.ro that, after a year of war, Ukraine is stronger, while Russia has demonstrated that it is “not capable” of supporting the offensive .
“Ukraine has become much stronger, compared to when the invasion began, much more capable from a military point of view, it understands much better the objectives we have in this war, and the most important objective is the defeat of the Russian Federation. For its part, Russia compromised its political reputation and not only. Russia is no longer seen as a country to fear and kneel before. And I’m not just referring to Ukraine here. Metaphorically speaking, I mean kneeling. And other European countries understood the same thing. Moreover, the European Union has also fundamentally changed. In Europe, the obvious pro-Russian positions have disappeared. The European political elites understand very clearly the nature of this war, the nature of the current political regime in Russia, and they understand that if Russia does not lose this war, it will remain a permanent threat to the security of all of Europe. That is why all decisions aimed at helping Ukraine are made much faster and decisively than before the invasion. War is a tragedy for Ukrainians”, he argued.
Podoliak said that Russia doesn’t have the necessary resources to start again a full-scale invasion.
“The so-called big offensive of the Russian Federation is already underway in the east, that is, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. There is intense fighting there, getting more and more intense in recent weeks. This is the so-called great offensive that has been talked about a lot, talked about so much especially by Russian propaganda.
Everything is under Ukraine’s control and the initiative on the battlefield is still on Ukraine’s side. Secondly, regarding the invasion scenario from the north, from the territory of Belarus, we have data that clearly show us that there are no formations that could start an invasion. There are no battalions capable enough in terms of tanks and artillery to break through Ukraine’s defense line. For this reason, this is related to the third party. This information is part of the hybrid war, with the information side of the war, which Russia is trying to propagate extremely strongly. Russia is trying to compensate for ineffective military actions. They are now betting on missile attacks and the extremely strong growth of intelligence influence in European countries and even in Ukraine. In other words, Russia wants to scare us. It’s a rather strange attempt. We, after a year of war, are aware that Russia is not capable of sustaining this war or starting new offensives”.
He added that, from what they see so far, they see an intensification of military actions in Donetsk and Luhansk. “As for the south, I think that the Russian Federation is trying with all its might to destabilize the situation in the south, but not in Ukraine, but in Moldova and Transnistria.”