(Reuters) - Ukrainian troops are suffering high losses because Western arms are arriving too slowly to equip the armed forces properly, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday.
Russia has been gaining ground in parts of eastern Ukraine including around Pokrovsk. Capture of the transport hub could enable Moscow to open new lines of attack.
Zelenskiy said the situation in the east was “very tough”, adding that half of Ukraine’s brigades there were not equipped.
Long range attacks are about knocking out supplies, the ability to produce new supplies, and the ability to get supplies to the front line.
Say Russia is getting more newly made artillery shells to the front line. The best way to fix this is to blow up the factories.
If you can’t take out the factories directly, take out components that the factories need to operate: ore processing, fuel refineries, electricity grid, etc.
The problem is all the critical targets are a long ways from the front line and Ukraine currently has limited capacity to hit them.
Meanwhile Russia is targeting all of Ukraine’s internal infrastructure constantly.
Long wars are won by the production capabilities of the groups involved as much as the front line troops.
But Ukraine no longer has a meaningful domestic productive capacity. This war is entirely the result of foreign countries funneling weapons into the Ukraine and using it as a proxy against Russia.
That’s not a conflict Ukrainians can truly win, as Zelensky is no longer in control of the military assets he needs to guard his borders. At best, they can bleed Russia hard enough so that both countries lose (the tragic consequence of every long running war).
How would a Russian military respond in turn, if the targets in Ukraine have been exhausted. How long will the diplomatic shield of NATO protect supply lines passing through Poland or Romania?