烏克蘭總司令怒轟外國人催他大反攻

Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, wants shells, planes and patience


General Valery Zaluzhny, the commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. (Oksana Parafeniuk for The Washington Post)

EXCLUSIVE

By Isabelle Khurshudyan

June 30, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

KYIV, Ukraine — For Ukraine’s counteroffensive to progress faster, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, says he needs more — of every weapon. And he is telling anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart, Gen. Mark A. Milley, as recently as Wednesday, that he needs those resources now.

In a rare, wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zaluzhny expressed frustration that while his biggest Western backers would never launch an offensive without air superiority, Ukraine still has not received modern fighter jets but is expected to rapidly take back territory from the occupying Russians. American-made F-16s, promised only recently, are not likely to arrive until the fall — in a best-case scenario.

His troops also should be firing at least as many artillery shells as their enemy, Zaluzhny said, but have been outshot tenfold at times because of limited resources.

So it “pisses me off,” Zaluzhny said, when he hears that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s east and south has started slower than expected — an opinion publicly expressed by Western officials and military analysts and also by President Volodymyr Zelensky, though Zaluzhny was not referring to Zelensky. His troops have gained some ground — even if it’s just 500 meters — every day, he said.

“This is not a show,” Zaluzhny said Wednesday in his office at Ukraine’s General Staff headquarters. “It's not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood.”

“Without being fully supplied, these plans are not feasible at all,” he added. “But they are being carried out. Yes, maybe not as fast as the participants in the show, the observers, would like, but that is their problem.”