President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on Wednesday evening confirmed plans for a Ukrainian counter-offensive prepared for spring, but until then he stressed that it is important that the Russian offensive is thwarted and assured that Moscow has significant losses among its forces, News.ro.

“This day was preparatory for a more distant perspective. Defense problems, economic problems – both aimed at this spring. It is necessary to make sure that this spring there really is a feeling that Ukraine is on its way to victory. This is relevant for the training of our defense forces, for providing our country with weapons and for our strategic initiative in the war,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his final speech delivered on Wednesday evening.

“Any attempts by Russia to restore the initiative must be stopped. And I am sure that we will succeed,” said the president, alluding to the offensive that Russia has launched in the east and south of the country.

“The enemy is already losing so many of its men, so many of its forces that soon it will be difficult to find, for example, marines in all of Russia,” assured Zelenskyi, who at the end of the speech thanked, as he does every evening, some Ukrainian units that are fighting at the front and resisting Russian assault.

Zelenskyi explained that this Ukrainian resistance demoralizes the Russian troops and is one of the weapons that Ukraine relies on. “Our task is to ensure that the desire to keep Ukrainian territories under occupation becomes less and less,” Zelenskyy said.

However, the president also touched on the economic aspect, noting that they are also preparing for spring. He noted that, for example, a big problem for agriculture is that there are mines on many agricultural lands.

“Today we had an economic meeting, also to prepare for spring. We discussed many issues. All this concerns the economic recovery of Ukraine, the creation of economic opportunities for our people and industry. The agrarian sector – there is a very acute problem of humanitarian demining of land. An interdepartmental working group has been created at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers to ensure the intensification of this activity – clearing territories of mines and unexploded ordnance,” the president said.

He also announced that the government was preparing new measures to debureaucratize the Ukrainian economy, and promised that the business environment would benefit from simplification in dozens of areas, including the cancellation of various bureaucratic permits and licenses.

“Measures to create jobs are also being prepared. Every job in our country is now a contribution to our resistance. And this is a way to return our people to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.

The President recalled the discussions he had with the Prime Minister of Sweden, who arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday, showing that the goal is primarily European integration and the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU, as well as military aid provided by Stockholm, which promised Ukraine the Archer artillery system.

“Today I spoke with the president of Azerbaijan. I thanked him for his sincere desire for peace in Ukraine, for the humanitarian support provided to our country, and for his wise opinion on the protection of international law. We agreed to cooperate within the framework of global institutions,” Zelenskyy said.

Instead, he did not mention anything about the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, which did not bring the results expected by Kyiv: the supply of tanks is much smaller than the initial promises, and there was no mention of airplanes, reports News. ro.

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