KYIV, Ukraine – Russia is putting up a desperate fight against Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News on Thursday, saying he believes if the Kremlin loses this battle, it will ultimately lose the war.
“Our heroic people, our troops at the front of the front line are facing very tough resistance,” he said in an interview in kyiv. «Because for Russia to lose this campaign to Ukraine, I would say, actually means losing the war.»
Zelenskyy said the front-line news was «generally positive, but it’s very difficult.»
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The interview comes days after the start of the long-awaited counteroffensive, aimed at driving Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces out of occupied territory.
kyiv has claimed incremental gains in the opening stages of its campaign but has yet to make any headway against tough Russian defenses in southern and eastern Ukraine.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam last week added a startling new dimension to the conflict, more than 15 months after the Kremlin invasion.
In Zelenskyy, Russia has found a fearless opponent whose refusal to leave the capital has boosted its international image and helped secure billions of dollars in military aid, most of it from the Biden administration.
The counteroffensive could prove crucial not only to Zelenskyy’s hopes of recapturing the seized land, but also to maintaining Allied support, which could be affected by the complexities of the battlefield and domestic politics.
Training for Ukrainian pilots to fly US-made F-16 fighter jets has already begun, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday, a potentially powerful tool for defending the country’s skies that Zelenskyy has long desired. time. But this will not be a quick fix, as any training is likely to take many months and come too late to mitigate Russia’s dominance of the skies in the counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with allied defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, for the first Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive. A key issue for NATO is Ukraine’s strong desire to join the alliance, something that has divided members.
The issue of Ukrainian military aid itself is also likely to become a divisive campaign issue in the US presidential election next year.
Former President Donald Trump said he would end the war immediately, but did not explain how, while complaining about the cost of aid. His main rival for the Republican nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, backed down on comments in which he downplayed the war as a «territorial dispute» in which the United States did not need to «get further entangled.»
Richard Engel and Gabe Joselow reported from kyiv, and Alexander Smith reported from London.
Yuliya Talmazan contributed.