Zelensky, Ukraine’s military chief say Russia’s 2025 offensives have failed

KYIV - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top military commander said on Sept 26 that Russian offensives had failed to meet their goals and Moscow was suffering heavy losses on the battlefield.

Mr Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ukrainian forces had inflicted heavy casualties on Russian troops in a counter-offensive near Dobropillia in eastern Donetsk region.

Top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi told reporters that “the Russians’ spring and summer campaign has effectively been disrupted”.

Russia has been making incremental gains across several parts of the front line, after large-scale deployment of reconnaissance and attack drones prevented quick progress of the sort seen in 2022.

Ukraine says the small advances are coming at a high human cost. Both sides in the war rarely discuss casualties, but some Western intelligence estimates put the number of those killed and wounded in Ukraine at more than one million.

Mr Zelensky, speaking after hearing reports from commanders, said it was around Dobropillia, near the logistics centre of Pokrovsk, that “the Russians wanted to achieve one of their significant breakthroughs along the front, but our forces are neutralising them”.

Mr Zelensky disputed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s account when he told some leaders that his forces were achieving their battlefield goals.

“For some time, they have been forced, year after year, to invent new reasons why the deadlines they announced keep getting pushed back,” he said.

Small Russian infantry assaults

In his comments, General Syrskyi said the active front line was now 1,250km long, and that an estimated 712,000 Russian personnel were involved in the fighting in Ukraine.

Gen Syrskyi said Russian plans to create a “buffer zone” in Sumy and Kharkiv regions in the north and north-east, to take Pokrovsk and to capture all of Donetsk region had failed.

The capture of all of Donetsk is a key aim of the war for Russia, which currently controls over 70 per cent of the region.

Gen Syrskyi said that since the beginning of summer, the Russians had been attacking with a tactic that he called “a thousand cuts” – a high number of tiny infantry assaults.

“This consists of the simultaneous use of a large number of small assault groups – four to six servicemen who advance using the terrain, ravines and wooded areas, with the main aim of penetrating as deeply as possible into our territory.”

Speaking about a Russian breakthrough in August near Dobropillia, he said Ukraine had cut off Russian forces along the Kazenyi Torets river in what he called a “trap”.

Change in Trump’s rhetoric

The commander added that in the last two months, Ukraine had hit 85 military or military-industrial facilities in Russian territory, including airbases, depots and factories.

This week, US President Donald Trump suddenly changed his view of the war from one where he said Kyiv had no cards to play to one where

Ukraine could take back all of the ground it has lost

so far – roughly 20 per cent of its total territory.

He did not, however, offer substantial new assistance to Ukraine to achieve these goals and has shifted the onus to European allies.

Russia says it is advancing in Ukraine and that Kyiv would be best advised to negotiate peace sooner rather than later. Ukraine has rejected Russia’s terms for negotiations, saying they would amount to surrender. REUTERS