ZALUZHNY: ‘NO DEEP AND BEAUTIFUL BREAKTHROUGH’: In a remarkably candid interview with the Economist, Ukrainian Commander in Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny ruefully admits he over-relied on NATO wargame projections and underestimated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to sacrifice tens of thousands of his troops, which has resulted in the high hopes for the summer counteroffensive devolving into what he calls a “positional form,” in other words, a stalemate.

“Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” Zaluzhny told the magazine.”The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing. In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder which the Chinese invented.”