In this interview with LB.ua editor Sonya Koshkina, Valerii Zaluzhnyi said:

• “There will be no war like the one on 24 February 2022. Because the more countries we involve in our technological process, the more it will guarantee us a truly reliable partner in the future who can help.”
• According to Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine entered a new, radically different phase of its war with Russia in 2024, according to the Kyiv Independent’s translation of the Ukrainian-language interview.
• "If we try to establish a ceasefire without building up our future defenses, the war will drag on for many more years. It began in 2014 — God willing, it will end in 2034," Zaluzhnyi warned, according to Kyiv Independent’s translation.
• "Right now, the front line exists mainly for killing," Zaluzhnyi said. "In 2022, tanks rode in front, and personnel followed them... Now, tanks and soldiers have switched places." according to Kyiv Independent’s translation.
• “It is still a huge mistake on NATO's part to believe that this banal re-equipment will be a magic wand that will come to their rescue at any moment... New forms and methods of use entail new structures in which they are used. As a result, there is a need for a new doctrine of use, a new training system and new funding. And whoever is the first to come up with this technology today, so that they can return to re-equipment in the future, will be on top.”
• “We can talk about Estonia, for example, or Poland, which is now intensively buying tanks. Building effective platforms where they can gain some interest is a huge complex approach. It's not just about investing in what we would get today, but what they would get in five years. To do this, we need to involve their training system so that they can prepare. So that they can see how this weapon changes the landscape of combat operations and tactics. This is a huge amount of work that needs to be done today in order to see results in five years. But again, I repeat: it has already been 1.5 years since ‘today’ arrived, and there are still no results.”
• "Today, NATO remains the only point of reference for Ukraine. It is, first and foremost, the most powerful military bloc. Another question is that the fate of this most powerful military bloc will most likely be the same as that of the League of Nations… God forbid that something like this should happen, but it seems to me that if today [a NATO member — S.K.] were to suffer significantly from aggression by a country such as the one we are currently at war with, it would probably be the end of that alliance. Unfortunately, it cannot withstand any criticism for objective and subjective reasons.”
• [When asked “And the fifth article would hardly work, am I right?] “In military matters, it is futile to predict anything. Anyone who predicts is a charlatan, because it depends on a million facts that cannot be predicted.”

Find the full interview at LB.ua. 

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the interviewee. Photo by AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky.