Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky has given an interview to Reuters. He commands Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, one of the country’s best-known and most controversial fighting formations, whose roots lie in the Azov unit founded by right-wing radicals.
Biletsky said Ukraine could seize the battlefield initiative from Russia within the next six months and strengthen its position in peace talks. He described the Russian military as exhausted and questioned its ability to achieve major breakthroughs.
If Ukraine maintains momentum, he said, it could protect the rest of the Donetsk region. “I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point”, Biletsky said. “More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical.”
Donetsk remains one of the main stumbling blocks in the peace process. Moscow is demanding the whole of Donbas, while Kyiv refuses to withdraw from territory that Russian troops have failed to conquer.
“We need to define those directions where we can improve our positions, take some strategic points, and then speak with the Russians from a position of strength – not weakness – about a truly stable truce”, Biletsky said. “From a military point of view, this is realistic.”
Battle for the Fortress Belt
Russian troops are pressing toward the so-called Fortress Belt, a chain of heavily fortified towns and cities in eastern Ukraine. Capturing it would allow Russia to threaten the rest of the Donbas. The Third Army Corps holds more than a tenth of the entire front line.
Fighting is under way in the strategic city of Kostiantynivka, which forms the southern end of the belt, and around Sloviansk, its northern bastion. Biletsky said his forces were compelling the Russians to attack Sloviansk head-on, causing heavy losses among Russian soldiers and commanders.
“The lack of personnel no longer allows them to advance the way they did, for example, a year ago”, Biletsky said.
He added that it was too early to draw firm conclusions from Kyiv’s recent successes, but said Ukraine could build on them by continuing medium-range attacks and advancing “carefully”.
Drones, Robots and Starlink
Biletsky said Russia currently holds the advantage in fiber-optic drones, which cannot be jammed by electronic warfare systems.
Ukraine, by contrast, is ahead in the development of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), heavy bomber drones and the deployment of robotic systems directly on the battlefield. Biletsky predicts that the future of warfare will be based on combined assaults involving far greater use of drones and robots, replacing some infantry roles and saving soldiers’ lives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Ukraine had retaken nearly 600 square km of territory this year. Reuters said it could not independently verify the figure. Moscow currently controls almost a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Bloomberg, cited by Ukrainian outlets, reported that a US Defense Intelligence Agency assessment found that the Ukrainian army had retaken around 400 square km of territory during an offensive earlier this year.
The gains were linked to the disabling of thousands of Starlink terminals used by Russian forces for battlefield communications. Biletsky also said Moscow was “radically losing” in battlefield communications because of the crackdown on Russian use of Starlink.
At the same time, Kyiv has stepped up medium-range drone strikes against Russian air defenses and logistics, and has intensified attacks on Russian energy facilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said he believed the war was nearing an end.
