The former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now Ambassador to Great Britain, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commented on the failure of the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in 2023 and the SBU searches at the temporary military command post in Kyiv in 2022. He spoke about this in an interview with The Associated Press, as reported by UNN.
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According to Zaluzhnyi, the counteroffensive plan, which he prepared with the participation of NATO partners, was thwarted because Volodymyr Zelenskyy and top Ukrainian officials did not provide him with the necessary resources.
The initial idea, as Zaluzhnyi noted, was to gather troops into a single fist, liberate the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, including the nuclear power plant, and then reach the Sea of Azov.
Further, the counteroffensive plan envisioned cutting off the land corridor to Crimea, which the Russian army used. This required a significant concentration of forces and tactical surprise.
Instead, according to Zaluzhnyi, Ukrainian troops were dispersed over a wider section of the front, which weakened their strike capabilities.
Zaluzhnyi also commented on the SBU searches in 2022. According to him, SBU officers then raided Zaluzhnyi's office. He said it could have been an act of intimidation.
Zaluzhnyi also stated that during the searches in 2022, he called the head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, and warned him that he was ready to call in the military to protect the command center.
In addition, he called the then head of the SBU, Vasyl Maliuk, to find out what was happening. According to Zaluzhnyi, Maliuk said he knew nothing about the raid and promised to look into the situation.
Later, the SBU commented on this situation to Ukrainian media. They stated that, indeed, they came to Valerii Zaluzhnyi's covert command post, but there were no searches. They added that Vasyl Maliuk and Valerii Zaluzhnyi managed to find common ground.