Two possible hints Tuesday from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and one of Ukraine’s most prominent military correspondents could signal that Kyiv is preparing to launch its long-awaited spring offensive against Russian forces.

In his address to the people on Tuesday evening, Zelenskyy spoke again about the difficult situation around the city of Bakhmut, saying that “Russia does not look at the number of people at all, it sends them to constantly storm our positions” and that “the intensity of hostilities is increasing.”

Most of his speech was devoted to the visit to Ukraine of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, with whom Zelenskyi met on Tuesday.

“Russia’s policy of genocide against our people will certainly have inevitable legal consequences for all those who conceived, approved and implemented such a policy. And I want to emphasize: it is not only about the perpetrators, but also about the highest leadership, political and military, of the terrorist state. Today, I discussed these things with Karim Khan during a meeting in Kyiv,” said the President of Ukraine.

But another of his statements, made on Tuesday evening, attracted attention.

Zelenskyi talks about the transition to “actions” to liberate Ukrainian territory

“We are preparing for the return of our fighters to actions for the liberation of our land. We think only about this goal of ours and every day we are getting closer to its achievement. Ukraine will be free. All of Ukraine,” Zelensky emphasized.

Zelensky is not the first to talk about the liberation of Ukrainian territory, he has repeatedly stated, starting in the second half of last year, after the failure of peace talks with Russia in Turkey, that Kyiv will only agree to the liberation of the entire territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, which was occupied by Moscow almost ten years ago.

His new statement on Tuesday about the preparation of liberation “actions” could easily be mistaken for “statements by a politician” aimed at encouraging people in a state of war, but this seems to be confirmed by information published also on Tuesday by one of the most famous correspondents of the war in Ukraine.

“There is a lot of information about the fact that here, in Donbas, the mass media is being blocked [regiunea] Zaporizhzhia. It is also about the large number of Ukrainian military personnel who have arrived in recent days. Keep an eye on this area,” Neil Gower wrote on Twitter at the time Zelenskyy was addressing Ukrainians.

Hauer is one of the most reliable foreign journalists living in Ukraine, being a co-author of CNN, The Guardian, CBC, New York Magazine and other reputable Western publications and television stations.

The Ukrainian government asked the media not to write about the offensive in the Kherson region

It will be recalled that on August 29, shortly after the Ukrainian press enthusiastically announced the start of the long-awaited offensive in the south of the country, Zelenskyi’s office requested a “media blackout” in order not to provide the Russian troops with information about the actions of the Armed Forces of Kyiv.

“I understand your wishes and dreams. But still, I suggest to switch to a cautious format of comments regarding any of our military actions,” wrote presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak in his Telegram channel.

“Therefore, I want to once again remind all politicians, experts and leaders of public opinion (it is clear that they know everything much better than the direct executors) about how important it is not to manipulate and not to speculate on information about the conduct of hostilities before the official statements of representatives of the Armed Forces or the Ministry defense of Ukraine,” he emphasized in the first official reaction of the Ukrainian government to the information provided to the mass media from Kyiv.

For days and weeks after that, the only picture of what was happening in the south of Ukraine could be compiled from information and video materials that appeared sporadically on social networks, eclectic messages from the Ukrainian military about the areas where the fighting was going on, and messages from the Russian Ministry of Defense about new ” sweeping” victories of his army in Kherson.

Currently, military analysts cannot agree on whether Ukraine will try to launch a spring offensive as soon as possible, so as not to give Russian troops even more time to strengthen their defensive positions, or wait for the arrival of the promised tanks. The event has a better chance of success.

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