London: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hinted that the tide is slowly turning in his country’s favour in the war against Russia that is now in its fifth year.
“We can’t say Russia is losing this war. But we can say they are losing the initiative each day,” Zelenskyy told The Guardian in an interview in London.
According to him, the situation on the battlefield is better than it has been for Kyiv for two and a half years. However, the situation “can change each day”, he noted.
“They are not winning the war,” Zelenskyy remarked, adding that he doesn’t see the Russians being optimistic in the coming months. He projected that the Kremlin may not be able to scale up its offensive over time.
Kyiv remains committed to finding different avenues to negotiate and restart peace talks, he said. “We hope that we can sit, speak and stop this war.”
Nearly 23,000-24,000 troops are dying on the battlefield each month, the Ukrainian president said.
His remarks come a day after the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Ukraine has recaptured more than 600 square km of territory so far this year. Russia currently controls 20 per
cent of Ukrainian territory, as reported by The Indian Express.
Russian energy supplies in several southern regions face disruptions following a surge in Ukrainian strikes, The Guardian reported, citing Russia’s Tass news agency. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ruled out holding talks with Zelenskyy any time soon.
With Ukraine’s strikes against supply lines rendering its defenses in the area increasingly untenable, Russia is reportedly withdrawing forces from the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv Oblast, according to the latest update from The Institute for The Study of War.
The last few weeks have witnessed intensified fighting, with Kyiv launching strikes on oil installations and Russia targeting major cities, including the Ukrainian capital. On Saturday, Ukraine fired hundreds of drones, leaving one person dead and an oil depot on fire on the final day of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
In response to this, Russia carried out strikes in Ukraine, killing five and injuring 14.
Kyiv has radically changed its battlefield strategy by relying more on robots, drones and other unmanned systems to carry out operations due to a manpower shortage.
Zelensky had claimed in April that Ukraine had captured a Russian position entirely by deploying these systems, adding that since January, Kyiv had carried out 22,000 missions using them.
British intelligence confirmed earlier in May that Russia has lost approximately 500,000 troops since the beginning of the war in 2022, assessing that its military is “going backwards on the battlefield”.
Zelenskyy’s comments come days after his meeting with UK prime minister Keir Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Fredreich Merz in London. The three leaders pledged to coordinate further support to Kyiv.