Zelenskyy sidesteps Sky News question about territory and calls for more shells for Ukraine

Published

1 year ago

February 25, 2024

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The city of Avdiivka now constitutes a Russian trophy in a state of ruin.

The logistics hub – or what’s left of it – was exhibited by uniformed Russian officials after months of intensive fighting on the front line.

It is their latest conquest in the invasion of Ukraine and the latest setback for their hard-pressed neighbour.

It was with reports of further Russian advances in villages surrounding Avdiivka that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy convened an all-day conference along with his ministers and generals, in a smart Kyiv hotel.

The gathering may have been designed as a show of confidence – or reassurance – but his address began with something that sounded like an admission – the first time he has spoken about the number of Ukrainian soldiers who have died since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

“I’m not sure if I have the right. It’s a very serious moment. Let’s start from the beginning. Recently, there were voices in a radical part of some American political circles that were not on our side. They said, ‘How many more casualties do you want? Ukraine has lost 300,000 lives…’ This is all nonsense, this is all rubbish. Every person lost is a great loss for us, and it’s a very big loss for us – 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war.”

Critics will argue that the number is too low with Western officials saying the total is closer to 70,000, although the president had felt the need to give a figure.

There was another attempt at candour when I asked the Ukrainian leader whether he was prepared to cede territory to the Russians as the country attempts to rearm its depleted military.

President Zelenskyy responded by referring to the shortage of artillery shells now faced by his forces – a ratio he estimated at one Ukrainian shell for every 12 Russian munitions fired.

“When we are at 1 to 1.5 [shells] or 1 to 3 [shells] then we can push back the Russians. Until we reach such numbers, we either hold our positions – or we lose them – 100 metres, 50 metres. Unfortunately, this is it.”

The prospect that Ukrainian forces will lose ground to the Russians seemed all too real to our team when we travelled to the city of Kupyansk on the north-eastern section of the front.

Soldiers told us they were under severe pressure with Russian troops mounting continuous attacks. An anti-tank commander said he only had enough grenades to fire for approximately 15 minutes.

This was something we were able to raise with the country’s powerful head of military intelligence, General Kyrylo Budanov, who also attended the conference.

“It’s been a really tough period at the front [for Ukraine], what message are you trying to send now?” I asked when we spoke outside the main hall.

“Listen, don’t dramatise the situation, that’s what I want to say. The situation is hardly different from yesterday, the day before, or a month ago,” he responded with evident frustration.

“But your soldiers are under pressure,” I responded, “we have been to Kupyansk,” I said before the general cut me off.

“There are no problems in the Kupyansk direction. There are issues in Avdiivka direction,” he said.

“What do you want from the West? What do you need?”

“We need weapons, and the sooner the better.”

The Ukrainians used this conference to sell the national story of resilience and heroic struggle – but it was General Budanov who seemed to get to the point.

Survival will not be achieved without urgent Western help.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

4 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

10 hours ago

August 10, 2025