After successes at the front: Ukrainian minister expects “snowball effect”

VAgainst the background of his country’s recent military successes, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has described the “full restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty within its recognized 1991 borders” as Kiev’s top war goal. Resnikov told the FAZ over the weekend that one could no longer be satisfied with Russia withdrawing to its positions at the beginning of the year

“Our border guards will stand at the border posts with Russia.” The Crimean peninsula and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of the country would one day belong to Ukraine again. As a further war goal he named a “comprehensible road map on how the Russians pay reparations and how they are held accountable for war crimes”. It should also be possible to resume “all flight connections” from Ukrainian airports, including international ones, without endangering them. All air traffic has been suspended in the country since the beginning of the war in February.

Resnikov expects a “snowball effect” from recent military successes; soon you will probably see “the second largest army in the world running away”. He called the Ukrainian army’s advance in recent days the “third phase of the war, the counter-offensive.” It follows the first phase (“deterrence”) and the second phase (“establishing a balance between the Russians and us, stabilizing the front line, testing Russian resistance”). With a “real” front line that is actually 1,300 kilometers long where Russian troops are stationed and a further 1,200 kilometers of border to the “unfriendly neighbor” Belarus, it is of course not possible to launch an offensive everywhere. Thus, “the third phase has begun in the Kharkiv regions in the north-east and Cherson in the south”.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, addressing participants at a conference in Kyiv in a video link over the weekend, said Russian troops must be “pushed back”. When asked about this, Reznikov said he attended the most recent conference of Ukraine’s military supporters in Ramstein last week. “All my colleagues, especially the American Minister Lloyd Austin, spoke of victory.” As far as his talks are concerned, he is confident on this point.

Speaking about the debate about Germany’s willingness and ability to supply arms to Ukraine, Reznikov said the issue put him in a difficult position. “I try to be friendly to my colleague Christine Lambrecht. I am grateful to her for what she does. But the fact of the matter is, in times of war, you never have enough guns and ammunition. We would like to have more, also from Germany. You, the Germans, have options and opportunities to provide us with more interesting equipment.”

German industry is ready “to sell us a lot. And we only need the approval of a committee in Berlin.” This applies to the Leopard 2 tank, but also to howitzers and drones. He also told his German interlocutors that the supply of these tanks would entail further purchases by third countries with the aim of sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine. That could be a great advantage for German companies.

The legal prosecution of war criminals, according to the lawyer Resnikov, cannot be limited to the Russian President and Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin. After all, a majority of the Russian population supports the war, so that one has to speak of a “collective Putin”. A future generation of Russians must know “what crimes their grandfathers and grandmothers committed”. After 1945, Germany faced up to its past and is now a successful country. “It is important to come to terms with the war crimes, killings and rapes in Russia, because the Russians will not fly into space with Elon Musk, but will remain our neighbors for generations.”