Ukrainians face grim reality of a prolonged war with Russia amid battlefield ‘stalemate’

For many Ukrainians, a recent somber assessment of the battlefield by Ukraine’s military chief was not a surprise. It’s what they have been hearing in conversations with friends, seeing on social media and experiencing personally on the frontlines as Russia’s war against their country drags on.

Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny said in an interview with the Economist magazine this week that “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” and each day that passes gives the Russians an advantage.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia is stalled as hard winter looms. Russia still occupies nearly a fifth of Ukraine and front lines are static for the most part while both sides continue to churn through soldiers.

Zaluzhny warned that Russia will “have superiority in weapons, equipment, missiles and ammunition for a considerable time” and that Ukraine needs “new, innovative approaches.”

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion in June, but it has so far failed to gain the momentum needed to turn the tide of the war in Kyiv’s favor.

On Saturday, Igor Zhovka, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, slammed Zaluzhny for his comments.

“I am sure that everything has been carefully read, noted down and conclusions drawn” by the Russians, he said, adding that he has received calls from counterparts in partner countries “in a panic” asking if the war really is at a stalemate. “Is this the effect we wanted to achieve with this article?” Zhovka said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky disagreed with Zaluzhny’s assessment. “This is not a stalemate. I emphasize this once again. We have already talked about this. This is not some kind of news,” he said in a news conference Saturday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Zaluzhny’s straight-to-the-point view offered a rare alternative to the hopeful messages that have become commonplace from Ukraine’s political leadership. Almost every night, Zelensky appeals to the public to keep believing in the country’s potential victory.

But for many Ukrainians, that goal seems elusive for now.

CNN spoke to Ukrainians about the potential for a prolonged war and the hope they still have as the conflict reaches what Zaluzhny called a “stalemate.”

Vitalii Shevchuk’s family members fled to safety, but their home was destroyed under Russian occupation in the town of Hostomel near Kyiv at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. Those days were filled with terror, he said. The situation may be better now but the truth of where the war stands “must be accepted, whatever it is,” he told CNN.

“There seem to be two realities: one is the optimistic one broadcast by the national telethon,” Shevchuk said, referring to the only official news broadcast jointly conducted by several major Ukrainian TV channels. “The other is about the true reality.”

Shevchuk said that when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk region that year, the fight seemed distant for many Ukrainians. But now even as the war moves into what Zaluzhny described as “positional warfare,” Shevchuk is convinced it will remain on everyone’s minds.

“I believe in Ukraine’s victory, but we have to take into account the objective reality… As for Zelensky’s positive predictions, they made sense. Because if we all walked around with our heads down, saying that everything is bad, everything is wrong, then eventually it would have happened,” he said. “Zelensky’s role was to raise morale, and if this spirit was not there, what would people have been holding on to?”

Reading Zaluzhny’s thoughts on where the battle stands, a deputy commander for an artillery unit near Bakhmut didn’t feel the need to pass the words on to soldiers serving under him. It was all very “obvious,” the deputy commander who spoke to CNN said on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media without permission.