“The master of clocks today is Zelensky”, estimates Peer de Yong, vice-president of the Themiis institute, specialist in geopolitics and former colonel of the marine troops, Saturday September 10 on franceinfo. He salutes the intelligence of the “maneuver” Ukrainian “to deceive the Russian enemy by attacking in the South when the main objective is in the North”.
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franceinfo: How do you explain the success of this Ukrainian counter-offensive in the northeast of the country?
Yong’s Peer: It’s called the maneuver. The Russians are superior in numbers, artillery and equipment but the Ukrainians know how to maneuver. There is almost a deception maneuver, as they say, a maneuver to deceive the Russian enemy by attacking in the South when the main objective is in the North. The master of clocks today is Zelensky, who masters by balancing the fronts: a blow to the south, a blow to the north. And that is extremely clever. Of course, he is aided by an extremely high level of intelligence. I imagine that NATO forces send him all possible and imaginable information so that the Ukrainians attack in the right places. Nevertheless, undeniably, today Russia is retreating.
It is unclear what state the Russian army is in. We hear that she recruits in all directions, even in prisons and in certain psychiatric hospitals…
I am very suspicious because the information comes mainly from Ukraine, we are in the context of an extremely intensive information war and there is disinformation on both sides. In any case the Russians have not decreed general mobilization, which means that they are obliged to recruit professionals.
“The Ukrainians announced 9,000 dead and about 20,000 wounded, whereas we know that the defensive forces have three times fewer dead and wounded than the offensive forces. The Russians would therefore have lost approximately 60,000 men in wounded and in death.”
Peer de Yong, Vice President of Themiis Instituteat franceinfo
It is absolutely considerable and that means that they have to be replaced. So Russia has a real recruitment problem, just to plug the holes and replace the forces that have been lost.
Can all this give us an idea of the sequence of military events? How do you think this can evolve in the weeks and months to come and can we move towards an end to the conflict?
It’s too early to tell, of course. But I don’t really believe it. The Russians also have strong motivations and I don’t see them stopping now. The problem is that winter is coming. The front has stabilized with a sort of permanent Ukrainian pressure that is visible both in the North and in the South, and I think that this period of stabilization will allow for negotiation. It already exists around wheat, thanks to the Turks. So we can imagine that in the coming months, there is a discussion that is taking place and that finally, these two populations or in any case Zelensky and Putin, find a diplomatico-something solution. But there will be no reversal of the front in the months to come. We can expect a conflict that will last for some time, even at least a short year.