Zelensky says Ukraine can still achieve results on the battlefield this year

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Ukraine would still try to achieve results on the battlefield by the end of the year and that he remained confident that Kiev would ultimately achieve success in the war despite difficulties on the front.

He acknowledged the slow progress of Kiev’s counteroffensive in the occupied south in an interview via video link at the Reuters Next conference in New York, and also touted a 2024 Ukrainian battlefield plan that he said he could not reveal.

His tone contrasts with a bleaker assessment last week by his supreme commander, who said the fighting, now in its 21st month, may be heading toward a stalemate and a war of attrition that could favor Russia.

“We have a plan. We have very specific cities and very (concrete) directions where we are headed. I can’t share all the details but we have some slow steps forward in the south, and we also have steps in the east,” he added. He said.

“And I think some good steps…near the Kherson region. I’m sure we will achieve success. It’s difficult.”

Ukrainian forces are trying to establish a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the vast Dnipro River in the Kherson region, large swaths of which were liberated in Ukraine’s last rapid counterattack almost a year ago.

Zelensky stressed the need for Ukrainians to remain united, something he said Western leaders could help with as the war continues with a winter of air strikes and questions about the sustainability of Western military aid approaching.

Keen to make clear that Kiev was deeply grateful for military assistance from the West, without which he said Ukraine could not maintain its results on the battlefield, he added that decisions on providing such support “have been a bit slow at times.”

In response to a question about whether Kiev feared the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House after next year’s elections, he said that it was up to American citizens to elect a new president, and that he could not say whether his elections would be good or bad.

But he added that some votes in the US Republican Party were a cause for concern among some Ukrainians who fear a change in US policy towards Ukraine.

“Some of the votes from Republicans have now become really dangerous. Of course our people fear such votes,” he said.

On the diplomatic level, he acknowledged that the ongoing war in Gaza had distracted global attention from Ukraine’s plight, but he said that it was important to continue support for Ukraine, whose defeat would push tens of millions of migrants.

“Very important signal”

He spoke in the interview hours after the EU executive published a report on Ukraine’s progress towards membership, and recommended members of the trading bloc agree to launch accession talks once conditions are met.

He said the report made Wednesday a “successful day” for Ukraine and sent a “very important signal,” noting that Kiev had “done a lot” on anti-corruption reforms that were crucial not only to the country’s application to join the European Union.

“The reforms also contradict the old system. First of all, we are doing it for us, for our people, we need it,” he said.

The reforms are also vital to Ukraine’s chances of attracting billions of dollars in aid to help rebuild the country devastated by the Russian invasion in February 2022. He expressed confidence in Ukraine’s ability to ensure the post-war reconstruction process is free of corruption.

He called for withdrawing funds from Russian assets that were frozen after the invasion and pouring them into rebuilding Ukraine.

“We’ve started working on that, we’ve made progress on that, and we’re now starting to use interest on some of these assets. We need a joint decision to keep these funds now frozen and take these funds for replenishment.”

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