The head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhnyi, said on Tuesday that it is necessary to continue the administration of the significant losses of the Russian army until Moscow decides to abandon the war that began almost two years ago, EFE reports. In addition, on Tuesday, the general admitted that Ukrainian troops have withdrawn to the outskirts of Maryinka, although units still remain in the north of the destroyed city.

“I once said that one of my biggest mistakes was to believe that the number of casualties we inflicted on the enemy could stop him, because any other country would do it, but not the Russian Federation,” Zaluzhny said at an unusual roundtable with the press According to him, there are “mountains of Russian corpses at the front, which no one is even trying to take away.” “Every day more and more of them appear and, unfortunately, this is Russia’s attitude towards its own people,” he said, according to Agerpres.

For this reason, Zaluzhny argued that it is now difficult to predict how many more casualties Russia might suffer to end the war, but even so he believes it is “necessary” for the Russian army to continue to take casualties “as long as it refuses to conduct hostilities against our country “.

According to Kyiv, during the 672 days of the war, Russia lost 355,750 people in battles, the Russian-language service of the BBC network and the independent portal “Mediazon” confirmed at least 39,424 dead.

Zaluzhny also assured that Ukraine is doing everything possible to adequately respond to Russia’s plans in 2024, including in the technological sphere.

In 2024, “it won’t just be different, it has to be different, because otherwise we will face what we wrote in the article,” he commented, referring to what was published in the British weekly The Economist in November, when Zaluyny said, “As in World War I, we have reached a level of technology that puts us at a standstill” in the war.

“We have identified these problems and have already found about 90% of the solutions to these problems that will need to be solved in order to work more efficiently next year and, most importantly, to keep people,” he said. .

Everyone must protect Ukraine

Zaluzhny also noted that he did not make any request to the government in Kyiv for a certain number of mobilized after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and the leader of the ruling party in the parliament Davyd Arahamia said that the army requested between 400,500,000 and 500,000 additional soldiers.

He emphasized that any assessment expressed out loud does not mean that the military should be mobilized tomorrow.

At the same time, Zaluzhny expressed the hope that the soldiers who are currently fighting at the front will be able to leave the army “after 36 months” of military service, i.e. in 2025, and only under two conditions: if there is no escalation at the front and if someone has to replace them. However, he warned that this goal may be very difficult to achieve given the reality on the ground.

The senior official of Ukraine also emphasized that it does not depend on the Armed Forces of Ukraine to evaluate the choice of Ukrainians who are currently abroad.

Earlier, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, said in an interview with the German media that Ukraine could also try to mobilize them, although there is currently no such mechanism.

“Our position is quite simple: we need shells, we need weapons, we need people. All this is implemented by the competent authorities,” Zaluzhny insisted.

The government has already sent to the Verkhovna Rada two draft laws on improving the mobilization process, which provide for lowering the conscription age to 25, i.e. two years less than now, and measures against those who try to evade conscription, including through electronic call-up notices .

Everyone has to defend Ukraine, not only those who joined the army in 2022-2023, Zaluzhny emphasized.

Ukrainian troops retreated to the outskirts of Maryinka

Ultimately, the head of the Armed Forces admitted on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn to the outskirts of Maryinka, although units still remained in the north of the destroyed city.

“They are destroying street after street, block after block. Our fighters are under attack. And the fact that we have now moved to the outskirts of Maryinka and in some places have already taken positions behind Maryinka, I don’t think that this can cause a public protest,” he explained. Despite this, “at the time of the conversation” there are still units “in the northern part” of Maryinka, he emphasized.

Zaluzhny compared the Russian attack on the city in the east of the Donetsk region with the complete destruction of the city of Bakhmut by Russian soldiers.

“We protect every inch of our land, every inch, but if enemy shells start covering this narrow piece with stones, earth and our soldiers, then the lives of our soldiers are more important to us,” he said. “Unfortunately, war is like this,” complained the head of the Armed Forces.

Moscow hopes that the final capture of Maryinka, the first since the occupation of Bakhmut in May, will pave the way for a tightening of the siege around Avdivka, a town in the same area that is the main target of the current Russian offensive that began in October.

Zaluzhny promised that the Ukrainian army will protect Avdivka as much as possible, but he once again emphasized that it is important to save the soldiers.

A senior Ukrainian military commander noted that “the enemy can concentrate its forces, including artillery and aviation, in one or another direction and make the city look like a collapsed Bakhmut in two or three months.”