The agreements signed by Russia “are worth nothing”, explains Gallagher Fenwick, journalist and biographer of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday July 25 on franceinfo, as the war in Ukraine enters its sixth month. Moscow organized strikes on the port of Odessa after signing an agreement on the resumption of exports of blocked cereals.
franceinfo: We have the impression of two curves that are crossing: a Ukrainian army which is gaining strength and, conversely, a Russian army which is running out of steam, particularly in terms of equipment. Is it right ?
Gallagher Fenwick: In any case, that is what the Ukrainians and their Western allies want to believe. There is much talk of a counter-offensive to come. We obviously do not know the logistical, strategic or military details. No given date, no short or medium deadline. It should happen before winter, which would certainly be very harsh for the Ukrainians. And we are already seeing a little bit of rumors of Ukrainians on the initiative, especially in the city and region of Kherson, in the south, where local Ukrainian authorities loyal to kyiv announce that they are already in the process of resuming ground. It is symbolically strong since it is the very first city to have fallen into the hands of the Russians.
Is Russia bluffing when it says that Donbass is a stage and that its military operation will continue beyond?
The Ukrainian army asserts in the South that it is regaining the advantage. There is an information war. It is obviously very difficult to verify all this on the ground. Each situation is crystalline, fragile. Sometimes, we speak of a few hundred meters gained which are, in the following hour, lost. The question behind all this is that of the sustainability of the war effort. In reality, on the one hand there is the advantage of mass – the Russians have much more equipment, men and ammunition than the Ukrainians – but on the Ukrainian side, we have the quality of the elements provided by the Occident, the Caesar cannons, the American Himars rocket launchers, but other equipment as well. The question is who will last the longest. There is strong morale, even if it is still weakened by these incessant artillery barrages, on the side of the Ukrainians. On the Russian side, there is the question of this effort, which is very substantial with very, very heavy losses, since British military intelligence still speaks of several tens of thousands of Russian soldiers dead or injured. And then you have to provide them with equipment too: even if the Russian war machine is very powerful, like everything, it has a limit.
When the Russian army strikes the port of Odessa, the day after the signing of an agreement to authorize Ukrainian ships to export the wheat blocked by Moscow, is its aim to show that it is still Russia which is holding the handle ?
This is the very illustration of Putin’s modus operandi: sign then target. This means maintaining the pressure by organizing its unpredictability and above all by distilling theories, contradictory communications: first we deny, then we affirm that it was the targeting of military infrastructures. This is a technique typical of the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin and this is probably the reason why many Ukrainians say and know that this exit from the war will only be done by arms, since the agreements are worth nothing, since less than 24 hours after they are signed, they are immediately violated. We see the illustration of this in Odessa. It must be remembered that this war has been going on since 2014 and that there have already been agreements, in particular the Minsk agreements in 2015, which were to lead to ceasefires and which, likewise, were immediately violated by the belligerents.