Neither Russia nor Ukraine has a chance to achieve their military goals, so the war will probably end at the negotiating table, said the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army General Mark Milley in an interview with the Financial Times, quoted by the News. .ro.

General Mark Milley was one of the most prominent American supporters of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow, and he still believes that the war will end at the negotiating table, without touching either side of his military objections, the Financial Times notes.

“It will be almost impossible for the Russians to achieve their political goals through military means. It is unlikely that Russia will invade Ukraine. It simply will not happen,” General Milley said.

“Also, it is very, very difficult for Ukraine to expel Russians from every centimeter of occupied Ukraine this year,” he continued. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. But it is extremely difficult. And that would require, essentially, the collapse of the Russian army,” Milley said.

Asked whether the time for diplomacy between Moscow and Kyiv had passed, Milley said: “It’s still a few weeks before the start of spring, but it’s a moving window. There are opportunities at any moment.”

However, he admits that both sides are currently “pretty tight on their goals” and unwilling to negotiate.

General Milley says the conflict echoes the lesson of World War II, namely that aggression must be stopped with “firmness, deterrence, military force,” although he acknowledges that, given Russia’s nuclear arsenal, the stakes are higher now.

“In this particular case, it’s a country against a country that is big and has nuclear weapons. So you have to be very, very aware of escalation management. At the same time, you must uphold the principles on which the United Nations was founded. on which the international order is based,” said the general.

The Pentagon is currently reviewing its weapons stockpile and may be forced to increase military spending after seeing how quickly ammunition was used up during the war in Ukraine, a senior US military official said.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the return to Europe of 20th-century ground warfare tactics is forcing American planners to reconsider assumptions they made in recent decades that prompted military strategists to reconfigure how they fight terrorism and wage war. such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

“One of the lessons of this war is the very high consumption of conventional munitions, and we’re reviewing our own stockpiles and our own plans to make sure we’ve got it right,” Milley told the Financial Times.

“We are trying to do an analysis to then assess what, in our opinion, the real need will be. And then we have to include it in the budget,” he said. Ammunition is very expensive, the general added. (News.ro)

On the same topic:

• General Milli: Russia has no opportunity to launch a new attack on Kyiv
• US military commander: Russia lost strategically, operationally and tactically in Ukraine
• The Pentagon does not believe that the Ukrainian military will be able to return Crimea in a short period of time

___

• Follow the latest events of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HotNews.ro