Ukraine’s army chief said on Dec 18 the situation on the front line of the war in opposition to the Russian forces had not been able to get to a stalemate. In remarks printed in November, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi showed the war with Russia as heading towards a fresh stage of static and attritional fighting. Creating contrasts with World War I, he said a level of technology had been reached that “leaves us into a stalemate”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later rejected there was a stalemate in the war.
Asked on Dec 18 whether he considered the battlefield situation now a stalemate, Gen Zaluzhnyi reverted “no”, Ukraine’s RBC media reported. He denied to make a remark on whether Ukraine plans counteroffensive operations over winter. “This is a war. I can’t say what I have decided, what we must do. Otherwise, it will be a show; not a war,” he was quoted as saying. A Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023 has taken some steps in opposition to intensely entrenched Russian positions. A senior military commander told Reuters separately that front line troops were encountering shortages of artillery shells and had scaled back some military operations because of a shortfall of foreign assistance.