A Ukrainian military commander said his country made the biggest mistake, missing the chance to take advantage of the patriotic spirit among the population in the first six months of the full-scale war, UNIAN agency reported.
Olexander Bukatar of the 3rd special purpose brigade “Spartan“ (part of the National Guard) admitted that now many men are hiding because they forget that the Ukrainian constitution carries responsibilities, not only rights.
„We made the biggest mistake - we missed that patriotic spirit that was there in the first six months. We should have stuck to it, developed it, even then we should have written it into a mobilization law and then everything would have been different,” said Bukatar.
Speaking of the big cities, in particular Kiev and Kharkiv, the commander stated that the population there does not understand exactly what is happening on the front line. He remembered in particular such phrases as “this is not my war” and “I have not studied for it”. Bukatar emphasized that the Russians are a sneaky enemy that does not stop its attacks.
In the first months of the war, many Ukrainians volunteered to join the army to defend their country. Now, however, Kyiv has a big problem with mobilization, because some of the newly mobilized are not so motivated, while others try to hide from the law and their duties.
Earlier this month, the US WSJ reported that the Russian military had killed 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers since the start of the war. Volodymyr Zelensky later denied these figures and stated that the reported information was a lie. Kiev, for obvious reasons, like Moscow, keeps secret the number of its casualties in the war (killed and wounded).