“Will not give up territories”
Selenskyj angry at US criticism of Ukrainian tactics
08/23/2023 9:24 p.m
US officials have criticized the deployment of Ukrainian troops to ward off Russian invaders. They call for a stronger focus on the south of the country. President Zelenskyj brusquely rejects this and defends his own tactics. Otherwise, the attackers would seize the moment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed foreign criticism of an alleged misallocation of the army to repel the Russian invasion. “Does an expert know how many people, how many occupiers are in the east? About 200,000!” Zelenskyy said at a press conference in Kiev.
The Russian army is just waiting for Ukraine to neglect protecting some sectors of the front. The Russians would then immediately advance to the east. “We will not give up Kharkiv, the Donbass, Pavlohrad or Dnipro. And that’s a good thing,” the president continued.
He was responding to a report in the New York Times. In it, unnamed US military and other experts expressed the view that Ukraine was not concentrating enough units in the south. That is why the hoped-for advance towards the Sea of Azov is halting. They advised Kiev to change tactics.
USA: Russian supplies must be interrupted
The main goal of the counter-offensive is to cut Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine by severing the land bridge between Russia and occupied Crimea, US officials told the paper. But instead of concentrating on that, the Ukrainian high command would have divided troops and firepower evenly to the east and south.
At a video conference on August 10, US Chief of Staff Mark Milley suggested to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Salushnyi to concentrate on one front during the counteroffensive. According to the report, Zalushny agreed to the proposal. There are already signs that Ukraine has started moving some more experienced units from the east to the south, the sources said. However, these troops have already suffered heavy casualties and are weakened.
The current front in eastern and southern Ukraine is about 800 kilometers long. In addition, the Ukrainian army has to defend further border sections with Russia, for example near Kharkiv and Sumy, and guard the long border with Belarus.