“Muzhenko paid special attention to the counteroffensive of 2023, which, according to him, “should not have been planned at all””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
He emphasized that “the adoption of more effective decisions could change the course of the war in favor of Ukraine.” In particular, Muzhenko noted the spring campaign of 2022.
“March-April 2022, the withdrawal of troops from Kyiv and the lost opportunity to defeat the Russian group on the right bank of the Dnieper near Kherson. For this, it was necessary to make appropriate decisions in advance or in time, to carry out the transfer of a certain set of troops, and we could solve this issue, in my opinion, then, we had a chance to solve it. We came to this six months later, in the fall of 2022,” explained Muzhenko.
The former commander-in-chief also commented on the Kharkiv operation in the fall of 2022, which he called “successful, but underestimated in the context of the further development of the situation.”
“When we conducted such a successful operation, a successful operation by and large, but we were unable to reformat it in a timely manner into a defensive one and thus divert the appropriate assault component, the mobile component of our troops for actions in other directions. We could then hold the initiative. This was not done and the initiative was already lost, they switched to defensive battles,” says Muzhenko.
Muzhenko paid special attention to the counteroffensive of 2023, which, according to him, “should not have been planned at all.” He emphasized that “instead of spending reserves, it was necessary to focus on their formation.”
“In my opinion, it was necessary to form reserves during this time. And this created problems for us, including already in 2024. Because those military organizations, which are corps-level, brigade-level, the level of some group of 5-7 brigades and so on, even more, were simply exhausted during this counteroffensive,” says Muzhenko.
Muzhenko also noted that “since the fall of 2023, Russian troops went on the offensive, as a result of which Ukraine lost strategically important defensive lines, in particular Avdiivka and Ocheretyne.” In his opinion, “this complicated the situation in the Donetsk direction, which remains relevant even today.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the full-scale invasion a “special operation.” Initially, its goal was defined as “demilitarization and de-Nazification”, later – “protection of Donbas”. And in September and early October, Russia made an attempt to annex the partially occupied Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Ukraine and the West have declared that these actions are illegal. On October 12, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the Russian Federation’s attempt to annex the occupied territories of Ukraine.
The Russian authorities say that the army does not attack civilian objects. At the same time, Russian aviation, missile forces, navy and artillery shell Ukrainian cities every day. Residential buildings and objects of civil infrastructure throughout the territory of Ukraine are subject to destruction.
At the end of October, Ukraine estimated Russia’s losses in the war at more than 70,000 dead soldiers. In September, Russia announced that its losses were less than 6,000 dead. In June, President Zelensky estimated the ratio of losses of Ukraine and Russia as one to five.
Having not overcome the resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the surviving Russian units withdrew from the territory of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions in early April. And in September, as a result of a lightning counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army liberated almost the entire occupied part of the Kharkiv region.
On November 11, the Ukrainian Defense Forces pushed the Russian forces out of Kherson.
After the liberation of Kyiv region from Russian troops, facts of mass murders, torture and rape of civilians, including children, were discovered in the cities of Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel and villages of the region.
Ukrainian authorities have declared that Russia is committing genocide. Western countries are involved in confirming the facts of mass murders and investigating them. The Russian Federation rejects accusations of war crimes.
Later, the facts of torture and murder of Ukrainian citizens began to be revealed in almost all settlements that were liberated from Russian occupation. In particular, in Chernihiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast.
Since September 2022, fierce battles of the Russian-Ukrainian war have been going on in the east and south of Ukraine.
On June 6, 2023, the dam of the Kakhov reservoir was completely destroyed (it was under the control of the Russian army from the beginning of March 2022, and in October it was mined by the occupiers), which led to the flooding of a large area, human casualties, destruction of agricultural land, pollution of the Dnipro and the Black Sea. Ukraine called it ecocide.
In total, during the full-scale war from February 24, 2022 to the end of June 2024, the UN verified data on at least 33,878 civilian casualties, including 11,284 deaths.
According to experts, the real number of losses is much higher. According to the Ukrainian authorities, more than 20,000 people could have died during the blockade and bombardment of Mariupol alone.