Zelensky Top Adviser Says Counteroffensive Fell Short of Expectations

A top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive in the war with Russia didn’t live up to expectations as the bloodshed continues.

While discussing the war in an interview with independent Russian media outlet Meduza, Mykhailo Podolyak said the results of Ukraine’s resistance effort were “not what we expected,” but added that Russia “has made no significant progress.”

Not long after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Black Sea became a key battleground. Ukraine has vowed to reclaim Crimea, which has been controlled by the Kremlin’s forces since 2014.

As Kyiv launched its counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces were armed with Western weapons and eyed the Russian “land bridge” of occupied territory that connects Moscow to Crimea. Almost two years later, that strategic corridor remains intact, with the cities of Ukrainian Melitopol, Berdyansk and Mariupol all still in Russian hands, and coveted Crimea far from the front lines.

Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive was intended to deliver a humiliating Russian defeat. However, in December, Zelensky said Kyiv’s operation “did not achieve the desired results.” Top Ukrainian commander General Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the end of last year referred to the 600-mile front as a “stalemate” between Russian and Ukrainian forces despite notable Ukrainian victories in the Black Sea and the punishing slow destruction imposed on Russia’s battered invading army.

Newsweek reached out via email on Monday night to the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

In the Meduza article, which was published Monday, the Ukrainian official was asked about the counteroffensive stalling, with Podolyak responding that while the Ukrainian forces didn’t achieve what was hoped, he believes that it doesn’t give Moscow an advantage.

“The results of the counteroffensive are certainly not what we expected,” Podolyak said. “There are objective and subjective factors for this. But as for the fact that Russia now has the initiative, this is not so. Russia is where it was a year ago; it has made no significant progress.”

The Ukrainian adviser said that his country’s forces have had “strategic successes, this is effective work on the Crimean Peninsula and in the Black Sea.” However, Podolyak added, the success of Ukrainian forces depends largely on available resources supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies.

“The operational plans of the Ukrainian command are determined by the availability of certain resources,” he said. “Today it is clear what resources we do not have enough. We need artillery shells, long-range missiles, drones—and any kind of electronic warfare. We need an aviation component—because Russian tactical aviation still has the advantage.”

Podolyak, however, said that Ukraine’s plans remain “unchanged.”

“There is no intermediate result in this war,” he said. “Any occupied territory remaining with Russia will provoke subsequent wars.”