According to him, military science reminds us that in order to achieve a political goal, when the expectation of a strategy of defeat does not come true, the strategy changes to attrition. He noted that the Russian enemy, by conducting military operations today, is trying to create social tension in Ukraine, cause damage to manpower and exorbitant costs of financial resources.
According to the ambassador, a possible “just peace”, without security guarantees and real financial programs, will certainly lead to civil war.
“For example, if Russia completely occupies Donetsk or other regions, the war will continue on both the political and economic fronts, since the political goal will not be achieved,” Zaluzhny said.
He noted that the fight “for symbolic geographical and cultural objects, and not for areas of terrain, is most profitable,” and “the transformation of such objects into a fortress only confirms and supports the enemy strategy.”
Within the framework of a war of attrition strategy, all operations are characterized by the fact that they have a limited goal, the article says. The war is not a decisive blow, but a struggle for positions on the military, political and economic fronts, from which, in the end, this blow could be delivered, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine believes.
“The strategy of attrition has its own decisive blow. And if for the enemy it means bringing the country to disintegration through military actions, the political and economic situation, what then is the decisive blow in this situation? If you remember history, the answer is obvious. This is a civil war. Yes, this is precisely the decisive blow that Russia systematically achieves by implementing the strategy of attrition. This war, by the way, in the absence of a common vision of a new security architecture at least on the European continent, is possible not only as a result of achieving a political goal, but also, oddly enough, through a “fair peace”, which, without security guarantees and real financial programs, will certainly lead the war with Russia into the next stage – civil war,” the diplomat emphasized.
Context
The Russian Federation launched a war against Ukraine in 2014, when it occupied Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine from the northern, eastern and southern directions. In the spring of the same year, the Ukrainian army deoccupied the north of the country, and in the fall – parts of the Kharkov and Kherson regions, in particular Kherson.
In June 2024, the Russian army launched an invasion in the north of the Kharkov region, and battles for Volchansk continue.
Since August 6, 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting an operation on the territory of the aggressor country – in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.
In May 2025, fighting began in the Sumy region, where the invaders entered. Later, the Ukrainian military liberated a number of settlements in the region.
On September 26, Bloomberg wrote that Ukraine is now the strongest ally that Europe can rely on.
