The former commander of the Ukrainian armed forces said that Kiev cannot hope for a miracle that would allow it to regain all the territory lost in the war with Russia.
Valery Zaluzhny, as reported by Reuters, said in a speech in Kiev that Ukraine should not dream of restoring the borders established with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, nor the front lines that existed immediately before the Russian invasion in February 2022.
“I hope there are no people in this room who are still expecting some miracle or a lucky coincidence that will bring peace to Ukraine, the borders of 1991 or 2022, and that great prosperity will follow,” said Zaluzhny, who was a popular Chief of the General Staff during the first two years of the war.
"My personal opinion is that the enemy still has the resources, forces and means to carry out strikes on our territory and attempt concrete offensive operations," he said in a speech published yesterday by the Ukrainian Justice portal.
Zaluzhny, 51, was removed from his post as commander-in-chief in February 2024 after months of reports of disagreements between him and President Volodymyr Zelensky. He currently serves as Ukraine's ambassador to London.
Zelensky and other public figures have long called for the expulsion of Russian forces and a return to the 1991 borders, including Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and annexed in a move recognized by few states.
However, as efforts have increasingly focused on initiating ceasefire negotiations in recent months, public statements from Kiev have been more moderate on the issue of possible territorial surrender, the British agency points out.
Russian armed forces now control about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including large parts of eastern Ukraine.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told the BBC last month that Ukraine might have to temporarily cede territory as part of a peace deal with Russia. He said Zelensky could be forced to accept a “painful solution” to achieve peace, even though the Ukrainian people would never accept Russian occupation.
Zaluzhny said that Russia has been waging a war of attrition for more than a year and that, given Ukraine's smaller forces and difficult economic circumstances, Kiev can only count on advanced technologies.
"We can only talk about a high-tech war for survival, using a minimum of human resources, a minimum of economic means to achieve maximum benefit," he declared.
"And in that situation, we must understand the following: our financial and economic resources are limited, our dependence on the help of partners is absolutely obvious, and this must be taken into account."
Opinion polls show that Zaluzhny remains among the most popular public figures in Ukraine. Polls also show that Zelensky's approval ratings are rising after his confrontation with US President Donald Trump at a meeting at the White House in February.
The European Union, in the absence of a ceasefire agreement with Russia, imposed new sanctions on Moscow this week, Reuters reminds.
Prisoner exchange
Negotiations towards establishing peace and even a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine have so far yielded no results, and the only concrete outcome of the first direct talks between the two sides in more than three years is the exchange of prisoners.
Russia and Ukraine released 390 people each yesterday, 270 soldiers and 120 civilians, and announced that exchanges would continue over the weekend, as part of a deal that would see the release of a total of 1.000 prisoners. The exchange, the largest so far of the war, marks a rare moment of practical cooperation in a conflict that has seen hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed or wounded and tens of thousands of civilians killed.
The Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday that the freed Russian citizens are currently in Belarus, which borders Ukraine, where they are receiving psychological and medical assistance before being transferred to Russia for further care. Among them are civilians captured in Russia's Kursk region during the Ukrainian incursion.
Zelensky posted photos of released prisoners celebrating their return, draped in Ukrainian flags.
Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video in which the wife of a released prisoner, in tears of joy, draped in a flag on Independence Square in Kiev, says that she has been waiting for his return since 2022. She said that she had just received a call from Ukrainian authorities confirming the good news.
“We waited, we hoped, and we fought,” said a woman named Viktorija.
Regarding the exchange, US President Donald Trump, who last week pressed the parties to sit at the negotiating table, wrote on the Truth Social network:
"Congratulations to both sides on this deal. Could this lead to something big???"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that Russia would be ready to hand over to Ukraine a draft document with the terms of a long-term peace agreement as soon as the current prisoner exchange is completed.
Bonus video:
