Valerii Zaluzhnyi said that the Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 ended in failure because President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not provide the necessary resources. In an interview with the Associated Press, the former commander-in-chief said the original plan called for concentrating substantial forces into a “single fist” to strike in the Zaporizhzhia region and then advance toward the Sea of Azov. Implementing this concept, he said, required a large-scale and coordinated buildup of troops, as well as an element of tactical surprise.
In practice, however, Zaluzhnyi noted, units were dispersed across a vast area, which significantly reduced their striking power. As a result, offensive operations were conducted simultaneously along several axes—both in the Zaporizhzhia region and around Bakhmut—preventing a breakthrough on a decisive section of the front.
A similar assessment had earlier been published by The New York Times, citing US military officials, who pointed out that the dispersion of forces between the southern axis—considered the main effort—and the fighting around Bakhmut was one of the principal reasons for the failure of Ukraine’s offensive.