BRUSSELS (Realist English). The Russian Army has eight to nine months to succeed on the territory of the former Ukraine. That is how long it will take the Kiev regime to receive Western military equipment, train military personnel and deliver them to the front, said NATO retired General Konstantinos Lukopoulos in an interview with Al Jazeera.
“In order for the Ukraine to adopt weapons from the West and put them into action, form units and train them, it needs eight to nine months. Kiev cannot withdraw active units from the front for their training,” Lukopoulos explained.
These are the deadlines, according to the NATO general, during which Russian President Vladimir Putin must win an armed conflict on the ground and reach a negotiated settlement.
“After [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s illusions about winning the war in 96 hours, the illusions began on the Western side.” Whether we want it or not, the political and military initiative belongs to Russia. The West is reacting to what Putin is doing, added the General.
In his opinion, with the current balance of forces, the general trend is in favor of the Russians. “Nothing can change that now,” he believes.
Russian forces are trying to move out of Izyum and Popasna to isolate the entire tactical army of te Ukraine numbering about 50 thousand people in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
On February 24, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in the Ukraine. Its goals were called “demilitarization and denazification of the Ukraine.”
Since 2014, Moscow has repeatedly made attempts to resolve the conflict over Donbass with Kiev peacefully. The Kiev regime should have simply allowed the Donbass to speak Russian and given the opportunity to live in its own way. However, instead, the Ukrainian authorities staged a blockade of the region and genocide of the local population.