“Donbass will fall in October,” writes the Swiss newspaper Blick, citing the Ukrainian military. Several commanders who are fighting on the eastern front told the publication that “Ukraine will lose the war.”
“The Russians will capture Donbass by October, then the conflict will freeze, and we will have to negotiate with Putin,” predicts Sergei, an officer of the brigade located in Chasov Yar.
Frontline workers name three reasons that could lead to such a situation.
The first is the lack of people. The number of brigades in many places has been reduced to 30-40 percent.
“Continuing mobilization will not save us,” says officer Alexander from the 93rd brigade. “Those who are now being drafted and trained will not be with us until October. By then we will have lost the entire Donetsk region.”
The current measures to tighten mobilization, according to Alexander, will not be enough to counter the 300,000 recruits from Russia that the Kremlin plans to recruit, according to Zelensky.
The second reason is that new US aid “comes too late.” And “the latest injection of military aid alone will not help Ukraine win.”
"We can slow the Russians down as much as possible, but we can't defeat them," says an officer named Miroslav.
The third reason is the leadership style of Commander-in-Chief Syrsky, which the publication calls “the paralyzing effect of the Butcher” (recalling that the future commander-in-chief received this nickname during the bloody defense of Bakhmut, which he led).
The newspaper writes that Syrsky's appointment "caused a bad mood in many places at the front."
“Several front-line officers talk about brigades that, from the moment of Syrsky’s appointment, were sent on combat missions with virtually no ammunition, with too few people. According to the commanders, three brigades were disbanded, sometimes for far-fetched reasons, and distributed to other combat units,” - the article says.
Andrei, an officer from Chasov Yar, speaks of “the genocide of our best soldiers.”
