KYIV – Ukraine’s top military commander signalled on Saturday morning that the nation’s forces were ready to launch their long-anticipated counter-offensive following months of preparations.
“It’s time to get back what’s ours,” Ukraine’s supreme military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, wrote in a statement.
The blunt statement, accompanied by a slickly produced video of Ukrainian troops preparing for battle and released on social media, appeared intended to rally a nation weary from 15 months of war and to deepen anxiety within the Russian ranks.
But Gen Zaluzhnyi offered no indication of where and when Ukrainian forces might try to break Russia’s hold on occupied territory.
Other senior Ukrainian officials also suggested the counter-offensive was imminent.
Mr Oleksiy Danilov, the head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council, told the BBC in an interview released on Saturday that Ukraine’s forces were “ready” and that a large-scale assault could come “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week”.
Ukraine has spent months amassing a powerful arsenal of Western-supplied weapons and training tens of thousands of soldiers in sophisticated offensive manoeuvres for the campaign, which military analysts have suggested will most likely focus on Russian-occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine.
There were no public indications of large-scale troop movements along the vast front line on Saturday morning. But the statements from Gen Zaluzhnyi and Mr Danilov come as a growing number of senior Ukrainian officials – including the head of military intelligence – have said in recent days that Ukraine now has what it needs to go on the attack.
Ukrainian officials have been deliberately vague in outlining their military plans, most likely in hopes of maintaining an element of surprise in what has become a widely telegraphed campaign. They have said the counter-offensive would not be marked by a single event and would probably feature feints and deceptions at the outset.
While the timing of the counter-offensive remained unclear, the statement from Gen Zaluzhnyi was the most direct indication the hour was drawing near.
The video that accompanied his statement was broadcast on national television and quickly spread across social media platforms.
Titled Prayer For The Liberation Of Ukraine – a nod to a nationalist poem from the 1920s – it featured Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle and vowing to “destroy” their enemies.
“Bless our decisive offensive!” the soldiers chant. NYTIMES
