Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the United Kingdom, has broken his silence on two of Kyiv’s most high-profile military operations in recent years.
In a reflective essay published on September 24 in Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror of the Week), Zaluzhnyi offered a frank assessment of the 2023 counteroffensive and the 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. His conclusion was blunt: both campaigns fell short of their objectives and exacted costs that he described as “too high.”
The remarks, coming from the man who directed the 2023 counteroffensive and later transitioned into diplomacy, mark his first in-depth public commentary on the campaigns that shaped Ukraine’s military trajectory.
They provide not only a critique of battlefield execution but also a broader reflection on the structural limits Ukraine faced against a heavily fortified and resource-rich Russian adversary.
The Stalled Counteroffensive of 2023
Zaluzhnyi began his analysis with the much-anticipated counteroffensive of summer 2023, which he directed while still serving as commander-in-chief.
Expectations had been high, with Western backers providing Ukraine with modern equipment and training programs in the hope of a decisive breakthrough. But the campaign quickly bogged down.
According to Zaluzhnyi, the central problem lay in a shortage of both manpower and assets. He explained that breaking through Russia’s layered fortifications required overwhelming superiority in firepower and the ability to rapidly exploit breaches with mobile reserves.
Ukraine, he said, never achieved that level of capacity. “Without the resources to sustain momentum,” he wrote, “our operations risked devolving into costly assaults without decisive results.”
The situation was worsened by leaks that exposed Ukraine’s plans well before the first units moved forward. Sensitive details filtered into public discourse and media speculation, creating what Zaluzhnyi termed a “reality TV show” of the counteroffensive.
As a result, Russian forces were able to anticipate Kyiv’s intentions, hardening their defenses accordingly. By late 2022 and into 2023, he noted, fighting around Donetsk had already acquired the characteristics of positional warfare.
Trench networks, minefields, and relentless artillery exchanges had turned the frontline into a grim echo of World War I. Russia’s approach, he argued, was less about maneuvers and more about attritional pressure, slowly grinding forward. That left Ukraine with few opportunities to achieve sweeping breakthroughs or encirclements.
Kursk Operation: Bold but Unsustainable
Turning to the Kursk incursion of 2024, Zaluzhnyi acknowledged the operation’s boldness. It marked Ukraine’s first significant offensive move onto Russian territory. Beginning in August 2024, Ukrainian units advanced into Kursk Oblast, seizing around 1,300 square kilometers — approximately 500 square miles — in the early days.
The strategic goal, designed under his successor Oleksandr Syrskyi, was to force Moscow to divert forces away from eastern Ukraine and blunt a looming Russian advance toward Sumy Oblast. At first, the maneuver stunned observers. Ukrainian forces achieved surprise and briefly held swaths of territory across the border.
Yet the success proved temporary. Russia regrouped, reinforced by the deployment of roughly 12,000 North Korean troops, and mounted a determined counteroffensive.
By spring 2025, most of the captured land was back under Russian control. The episode, Zaluzhnyi wrote, demonstrated that “an isolated tactical breach in a confined sector does not translate into operational success.”
He added that while limited incursions could sometimes be justified, especially when carefully calibrated to costs, this particular effort did not meet that standard.
The human toll was significant, and the operational payoff limited. Russia, he observed, leveraged technological and tactical advantages to first stall and then reverse Ukraine’s gains.
A Divergence of Perspectives
Zaluzhnyi’s sobering conclusions contrast with the public framing offered by Syrskyi. Throughout 2024 and into 2025, the current commander-in-chief stressed the heavy losses Russia incurred during the Kursk campaign.
In July, Syrskyi claimed Moscow had suffered as many as 80,000 killed or wounded. While he did not disclose Ukrainian losses, he insisted Russia’s casualties far outweighed Kyiv’s, portraying that as a strategic victory.
Analysts remain split. Some acknowledge that the temporary disruption forced Russia to adjust its planning and delayed its offensives in Donetsk and Sumy.
Others argue the diversionary effect was fleeting, while Ukraine paid a steep price in resources and lives. The operation, critics contend, left Kyiv weakened without permanently altering Russia’s momentum in the east.
Zaluzhnyi positioned his perspective firmly within the critical camp. He stressed that Ukraine’s inability to exploit breakthroughs and push forces into operational depth meant that neither campaign could deliver lasting gains. Both, in his view, illustrated the harsh reality of fighting an entrenched and better-resourced opponent.
Lessons in Stalemate
The broader lesson, Zaluzhnyi argued, is that tactical achievements have little strategic value without favorable operational conditions. The failure to rapidly exploit breaches left Ukraine unable to transform battlefield opportunities into lasting results.
Instead, the war has hardened into what he termed a positional stalemate, defined by attrition and deadlock rather than sweeping maneuvers.
President Volodymyr Zelensky indirectly supported part of this assessment when he confirmed that Kremlin intelligence had penetrated Ukraine’s counteroffensive plans before operations began. That admission highlighted the vulnerabilities Kyiv faced in 2023, including compromised secrecy and overstretched resources.
For Zaluzhnyi, now a diplomat rather than a general, the priority is to frame these setbacks as hard-earned lessons. His essay suggests that Ukraine must temper expectations of dramatic breakthroughs and instead adapt to a conflict where grinding attrition may remain the defining feature.
From Command to Diplomacy
Zaluzhnyi’s own career underscores the shifting dynamics. Dismissed as commander-in-chief in February 2024, he was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom that July. The move was seen as both a recognition of his stature abroad and a response to tensions within Kyiv’s leadership.
From London, his voice carries weight not only among Ukraine’s Western partners but also within the domestic debate on how best to prosecute the war. His essay, therefore, is more than a personal reflection; it is a policy-relevant intervention at a time when Ukraine is struggling to balance battlefield realities with political expectations.
Looking Forward
The reflections come at a critical moment. With Russian forces pressing in Donetsk and maintaining pressure along the front, Ukraine faces the challenge of sustaining international support while managing internal strains. Zaluzhnyi’s frank appraisal serves as a reminder that optimism must be matched with realism.
For Kyiv’s Western backers, the essay may raise uncomfortable questions about the feasibility of strategies built on the hope of decisive breakthroughs. It also underlines the importance of continued military assistance, not only in quantity but in capabilities that might eventually allow Ukraine to overcome Russia’s fortifications.
For Ukrainians themselves, the reflections are both sobering and clarifying. They highlight the resilience of their forces in the face of overwhelming odds but also the limits imposed by material constraints and strategic miscalculations.
As the war grinds on, Zaluzhnyi’s essay may be remembered less for its critique of specific campaigns and more for its insistence on learning from failure. In a conflict increasingly defined by endurance rather than maneuver, that message may prove to be his most enduring contribution.
This article was created using automation technology and was thoroughly edited and fact-checked by one of our editorial staff members