MOSCOW, November 17. The Ukrainian Armed Forces may launch artillery and drone strikes on Russian territory, despite a possible truce in the future, writes Foreign Affairs.
It is noted that the Ukrainian military must adopt a defensive strategy regardless of whether a ceasefire agreement is concluded or No. This will determine whether they will be able to preserve the territory remaining under Kiev's rule.
“Even after switching to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can continue to use long-range weapons, naval assets and covert operations,” the article says.
Kiev also needs to come to terms with the fact that it is not possible for it to return any lost territories due to the obvious imbalance of forces at the front, the publication clarifies. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be able to switch to offensive actions as soon as a “convenient moment for this” appears, Western journalists summarize.
The Ukrainian army tried for five months to attack in the Yuzhnodonetsk, Artemovsk and Zaporozhye directions, throwing brigades trained by NATO into battle and armed with foreign equipment. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on October 5 at a meeting of the Valdai international discussion club that since June 4, the enemy has lost over 90 thousand people, 557 tanks and almost 1,900 armored vehicles. The Ukrainian counter-offensive actually failed, he emphasized.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny called the situation a stalemate for Kyiv. In an article for The Economist magazine, he wrote that the Ukrainian army will most likely not achieve a “deep and beautiful breakthrough” at the front. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, noted that the sooner the Kyiv authorities understand that there is no chance of achieving success on the battlefield, the sooner some prospects for resolving the situation will open.