Zelensky faces big troubles; Where are the 700,000 soldiers?

According to the newspaper, although Zelensky promised his international partners that Ukraine would be able to fight if it received weapons and other forms of aid, the Ukrainian president and top military commanders have so far failed to come up with a clear plan to recruit thousands of critically needed new soldiers.

"The dwindling number of combat-capable Ukrainian troops is now a strategic crisis that was at least partly to blame for the withdrawal from Avdiivka and the surrounding villages, where Ukrainian forces were outnumbered," the American newspaper said.

Zelensky's inability to reach a political consensus on a strategy for mobilization has led to deep divisions in the Ukrainian parliament and society. The replacement of Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny did not give rise to a clear strategy for mobilization, although this was one of the reasons for this move, the "Washington Post" states, adding that neither the new Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi nor the presidency know what will happen to the 700,000 out of a total of one million new recruits who still did not appear at the front.

On top of that, there is the fact that the Western media also point out that the Ukrainian president's estimates about the losses of soldiers from the escalation of the conflict do not match the real situation. "Zelensky has long tried to control public messages about the state of war in order to preserve public morale. Last weekend, he released the death toll of Ukrainian soldiers for the first time, saying that since February 2022, 31,000 had been killed, and this figure could not be independently confirmed, writes "Washington Post". On the other hand, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated at the end of February that Ukraine has lost more than 444,000 soldiers since the beginning of the war. The New York Times, which was the first to announce itself after the Ukrainian president's claims, was not convinced by Zelensky's assessments.

"The number of dead members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the last two years of the conflict, which was cited by Zelensky, contradicts the estimates of US officials who estimated the losses to be much higher last summer, saying that close to 70,000 Ukrainians were killed, while between 100 and 120,000 were wounded", the American newspaper announced, and Novosti and the Russian portal Russia Today Balkan reported.