“Moral compromises will lead to more bloodshed. Real and lasting peace can only result from the complete elimination of all elements of Russian aggression,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that he rejected any proposal for a “temporary peace” from Russia.
“Immoral compromises will lead to more bloodshed. Real and lasting peace can only result from the complete elimination of all elements of Russian aggression,” Zelensky said, speaking at a security forum in Canada.
But why? To CNN Portugal, Major General Isidro de Morais Pereira explained the reasoning that led to this decision.
“Ukraine has achieved something very important in war and initiative. A fundamental principle of war is that once the initiative is gained, it should never be lost. Only attack leads to decisive results. Ukraine lacked the initiative and was on the defensive when it invaded. However, with Western support in arms, military training, and economic and financial resources, it was able to organize itself and achieve the endeavour. First, it drove Russian forces out of Kiev, then out of Kharkiv province, now a significant part of the Kherson region. A peace agreement at this point is completely meaningless,” he says.
“Now, above all, peace is important to Putin, who realizes that Russia does not have the ability to annex Ukraine, not even to achieve the second objective of Novorossiya, from Donetsk to Transnistria. The Russians are so afraid that they are strengthening the Melitopol region and even the most vulnerable region from a military point of view, Crimea. For Zelensky, it is Knows better because he knows military history,” he added.
According to the major general, Russia will use a final ceasefire to buy time and “train new troops, organize units, as well as build defensive positions, which is already being done 60 kilometers from the front”.
“Moscow already realizes that it will lose more ground and is very afraid of losing Crimea. It knows that the initiative to mobilize 300,000 men, the clumsy way and the attrition of fighting units at the front and some months and only losing 10 to 20% of the troops.
However, even reaching a temporary peace agreement, the Russian task will not be easy. “It takes at least a year from staff training to setting up the units. There is one more serious problem, the frames. Sergeants and officers take years to develop. Mobilization also went wrong because it was led by sergeants and officers who formed structures in peacetime but were transported to the battlefield.
“Russia has problems not only on the ground,” says Isidro de Morais Pereira. “Russia has a problem with training fighter pilots, it takes them at least a year to train. Doesn’t Russia have air superiority? Because it can’t. It will lose more planes and, above all, more pilots. In these months, they have already lost more in Ukraine than in the entire ten years of the war in Afghanistan. “They have lost more aircraft. Western-provided anti-aircraft defenses such as IRIS-T, NASAMS and Flakpanzer Gepard are critical,” concludes the Major General.
