The losses of Ukrainian forces in the war once morest Moscow are increasing in the east of the country, which raises questions regarding their ability to continue to confront the invading Russian forces.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this week that his country is losing between 60 to 100 soldiers a day as a result of the fighting.
Withdraw “Associated PressBy way of comparison, an average of fewer than 50 American soldiers were killed per day in 1968 during the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War.
And the former chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzenko, warned that the losses of his country’s forces may worsen in the future.
“This is one of the decisive moments in the war,” Mozenko said, adding that “the conflict in Ukraine is the most important in Europe since World War II, which explains why the losses are so great.”
In order to reduce losses, Mozenko believes that “Ukraine needs powerful weapons that match, and even surpass, Russian weapons, so that Ukraine can respond in kind.”
Russian artillery bombardment caused many casualties in the eastern regions of Ukraine, which Moscow began to focus on following it failed to capture Kyiv.
The former commander-in-chief of US forces in Europe, retired General Ben Hodges, described Russia’s strategy as a “medieval tactic of attrition.”
He said, “This number of Ukrainian casualties will continue until the arrival of advanced weapons promised by the United States and Britain to destroy and disable Russian artillery.”
“The battlefield in Ukraine is the most lethal compared to what we have seen for 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we did not have numbers like this,” he added in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
The number of Ukrainian forces before the invasion amounted to regarding 250 thousand soldiers. Western analysts estimate that the increasing Ukrainian military losses require them to search for alternatives.
“The war is now moving to the stage of a protracted conflict of attrition, and therefore Ukraine must look for alternatives,” said retired US Marine Colonel Mark Kansian, a consultant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
However, Ukrainian General Muzenko believes that Zelensky’s recognition of the large human losses in the ranks of his forces will increase the morale of the Ukrainians, indicating that the arrival of more Western weapons will help turn the equation.
“The more Ukrainians know what is happening on the battlefield, the greater will be the will to resist,” Muzenko said.
“It is true that the losses are high, but with the help of our allies we can reduce the losses and start launching successful attacks if we obtain advanced weapons,” he added.
After its defeat by Kyiv, the Russian army is now concentrating its efforts on Donbass in eastern Ukraine, where it ceaselessly bombards some cities, including Severodonetsk, which have been the focus of a fierce battle for weeks.
On Friday, Ukraine confirmed that it had forced Russian forces to retreat in Severodonetsk, the largest city in Donbass, where Moscow is focusing its offensive in the hope of complete control of this region.
