Aleksey Danilov says the situation is grave on the front line amid winter conditions and after Kiev’s failed counteroffensive
NATO’s war textbooks should be shelved as no modern training manual can prepare soldiers for the war in Ukraine, according to the secretary of Kiev’s National Security and Defense Council.
Aleksey Danilov told the BBC in an interview on Monday that Ukraine’s vaunted counteroffensive had not lived up to expectations, and said the situation on the front lines remained “very difficult.”
The secretary of the country’s war cabinet said the old “textbooks” on war – including the ones used by NATO to train Kiev’s troops – “should be sent back to the archives,” claiming that there hasn’t been a war like the current one in the 20th or 21st centuries.
He confirmed that the almost-six-month-long counteroffensive undertaken by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had not achieved its goals.
“There were hopes, but they didn’t come true,” Danilov acknowledged, saying that lasting in this conflict with Russia “for two years is already a big victory.”
The AFU has lost more than 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment in unsuccessful attempts to retake territory in the past six months, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Danilov told the BBC he was hopeful that US war aid would be forthcoming before the end of the year. A $60 billion aid package was blocked in the US Congress, embroiled in domestic, partisan politics. The funding was part of a larger $110 billion security funding bill requested by the administration of US President Joe Biden. It is currently being blocked by Republican opposition, who are demanding stricter anti-immigration measures for the US border in exchange for their approval.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to plead for more funding for Kiev’s conflict with Russia. Later in the day, Biden announced a $200 million aid package for Ukraine, via the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows for emergency transfers of US weapons stocks without congressional approval.
Zelensky’s visit ended up being a hollow effort, according to Russia’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov. “Attempts to convince [US lawmakers] that Ukraine is more important than US security were unsuccessful. Everyone’s tired of this beggar from Kiev,” he remarked.
Neither new sanctions nor the further packages of military aid will significantly alter the course of the conflict, Antonov said.
He claimed that the latest $200 million consignment of “deadly ‘Made in USA’ products” supplied to Kiev would only prolong the conflict and bring about “the suffering of thousands of people.”
