KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine: Ukraine has a six-month window in which to seize the battlefield initiative from Russia and strengthen its hand for peace talks, a senior commander told Reuters, predicting a “turning point” was imminent after more than four years of war.
Russian forces have made grinding gains since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the advances have slowed this year and Ukrainian troops are increasing pressure on the battlefield to try to push them back.
Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky, who commands Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, one of Ukraine’s most respected fighting forces, told Reuters in an interview that he believes Russia’s army is exhausted and incapable of making major breakthroughs.
If Ukraine’s military can build and maintain momentum over several months, it can gain the initiative along the frontline and push Russia to abandon its designs on the last part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine that it does not yet occupy, he said.
“I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point,” Biletsky said at an undisclosed underground location in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
