Time put the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army on the cover: he revealed many secrets to the publication

On September 26, the Time publication dedicated a cover and a large piece of material to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, who expressed the opinion that Ukraine’s intermediate victories would only be a respite in the struggle, reports Ukrainian Truth.

Photo: IStock

The publication notes that Valeriy Zaluzhny is one of many Ukrainians responsible for the courage and progress of the Ukrainian army. He has become the second “face of the war” after President Vladimir Zelensky and can play an outstanding role in the history of this war.

TIME's new cover: Inside the Ukrainian counterstrike that turned the tide of the war https://t.co/s4xdQEbFgN pic.twitter.com/V3z2Lua07h

- TIME (@TIME) September 26, 2022

His persona is ubiquitous in Ukrainian social networks. In one widely circulated image, an "iron general" kneels before the weeping mother of one of his soldiers, her head bowed in grief before a coffin. In another, he smiles as he watches the wedding of one of his servicemen during a lull in the fighting. Fan channels on Telegram have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, many changing their profiles to a photo of a general with hands folded in the shape of a heart. “When Zaluzhny enters a dark room, he doesn’t turn on the light, he turns off the darkness,” joked one viral TikTok video.

Valery Zaluzhny, giving an interview to Time in June, admitted that in July 2021, the offer to head the Armed Forces of Ukraine stunned him. The Russians then brought tanks to the border, and the Americans warned that Ukraine could face a full-scale attack soon.

Zaluzhny was drinking beer at his wife's birthday party when he went outside to answer a cell phone call and find out about his new job.

“I often looked back and asked myself: How did I get into this?” Zaluzhny said almost a year later.

To some, this choice seemed rash. Although Zaluzhny had developed a reputation for being an aggressive and ambitious commander, he was also considered a bit of a laugher, known for fooling around with his troops more than disciplining them. Born in 1973 in a Soviet military garrison in northern Ukraine, he says he dreamed of becoming a comedian, just like Zelensky himself. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his military family by attending an academy in Odessa in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine plunged into crisis.

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Time notes that, hardened by years of fighting Russia on the eastern front, Zaluzhny is part of a new generation of Ukrainian leaders who have learned to be flexible and delegate decisions to commanders on the ground. His tenacious preparations in the lead-up to the invasion and smart tactics in the early stages of the war helped the nation repel the Russians, the newspaper writes.

When Zelensky took office in 2019, the war in eastern Ukraine was in its fifth year, with Zaluzhny acting as commander in the war zone. It fell to him to keep the new president informed about military operations and command structures. He knew that Zelensky had never served in the army, and the military was not going to teach him the tactical intricacies of warfare. “He needs to understand military affairs no more than medicine or bridge building,” says Zaluzhny. To his surprise, Zelenskiy seemed to agree. “That turned out to be one of Zelensky’s biggest strengths,” says Oleksiy Melnyk, a former assistant defense minister of Ukraine. He allowed his generals to run the ball "without direct interference in military affairs."

Unlike Zelensky, who was skeptical about intelligence reports that a massive Russian invasion was imminent, Zaluzhny considered it a matter of time, so when he came to a high position, he began to implement changes so that officers would have the right to return fire without the permission of senior command.

“We needed to discourage them from attacking. We also had to show our teeth,” says Zaluzhny.

In early February, Zaluzhny demanded that the commanders take military exercises seriously.

It was disappointing to see the launch of large-scale military exercises involving thousands of Ukrainian troops, the main maneuvers of which were supposed to simulate a Russian attack, exposing gaps in Ukraine's defenses. In Zaluzhny's view, the exercises were the centerpiece of Ukraine's defensive strategy, its best chance of survival, and commanders were not taking them seriously enough. “I screamed for an hour,” he recalls. “I lost it.” The men sitting at the table were mostly older and more experienced than Zaluzhny, who did not have a reputation for losing his cool. “I explained to them that if they fail to implement this, the consequences will cost not only our lives, but also our country,” he said.

“The smell of war cannot be confused - and it was already felt in the air... I was afraid that we would lose the element of surprise. We needed the enemy to think we were all deployed at our normal bases, smoking weed, watching TV and posting on Facebook,” the commander in chief said.

When the invasion began on the morning of February 24, the general had two strategic goals to protect Ukraine.

“We could not allow the fall of Kyiv. And in all other vectors we had to shed their blood, even if in some places this required the loss of territory,” Zaluzhny said.

The goal was to allow the Russians to advance and then destroy their columns at the front and supply lines in the rear. On the sixth day of the invasion, Zaluzhny concluded that it was working. The Russians were unable to take the airports around Kyiv and had advanced deep enough to begin straining supply lines, leaving them open, according to Time.

Zaluzhny was surprised that, faced with resistance and supply problems, the enemy did not retreat or switch to a different approach. “They simply drove their soldiers to the slaughter. They chose the scenario that suited me best,” said Zaluzhny.

Milley, Zaluzhny's American colleague, was somewhat amazed when he saw that the Ukrainians were holding out. He asked Zaluzhny if he planned to evacuate to a safer place. “I told him, ‘I don’t understand you,’” Zaluzhny says. “For me, the war began in 2014... I didn’t run then and I’m not going to run now.”

“We will fight to the last drop of blood,” he told Time.

Kyiv's greatest success since the start of the full-scale war was a lightning-fast counteroffensive in northeastern Ukraine in early September that stunned Russian troops. It was expected in the Kherson region, but it became unexpected in the Kharkov region. According to Time, it was precisely this success that Vladimir Putin responded to with “partial mobilization.”

Combined with a second operation in the south, Ukrainian forces say they have wrested more than 6000 square kilometers from Russian control in less than two weeks, liberating dozens of towns and cities and cutting enemy supply lines.

The Russians were taken by surprise. Many fled in panic, leaving their weapons and equipment behind. Local reports painted a humiliating picture of the retreat, describing soldiers stealing clothes, bicycles and cars from civilians in order to escape.

In six days, the Ukrainian military retook approximately 3000 square kilometers of Russian-held territory, including strategic railway junctions used to resupply its forces. The blow stunned the Kremlin, U.S. officials and even senior Ukrainians. “I taught myself to moderate my expectations so as not to be disappointed later,” says Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov. “Some breakthroughs happened a little faster than planned.”

Intelligence and advanced weaponry provided by the West also helped. “They told us the location of the enemy, how many of them are in this place and what they store there,” says Reznikov. “Then we struck.”

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), provided by the Pentagon, allowed Ukraine to destroy ammunition, fuel, and command posts. Lighter vehicles, such as U.S.-donated Humvees and trucks and tanks sent by Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic, allowed Ukraine to outwit the Russians. “The Ukrainians have demonstrated much better distributed tactical-level operations,” says Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council director for Russia. “They are more disciplined.”

Moreover, Ukrainian officials say a flexible command structure was crucial, allowing them to take advantage of Russia's rapid collapse. “The Ukrainian army has the right to make decisions at all levels,” says Reznikov, comparing this to NATO standards. “They do it quickly, unlike the Russians.”

Ukrainian officials are still cautious in presenting military successes. “This is the story of not one star, but a whole constellation of our military elite,” says Reznikov, naming a long list of illustrious officers of the armed forces - infantry, navy, aviation, medical corps and others.

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Tempered by war, Ukrainian leaders know that recent successes have only bought them time. “Russia has put everything on this war,” says Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. — Putin cannot lose. The stakes are too high."

However, operations in southern Ukraine are moving slowly. With winter approaching, Kyiv must be careful not to overexert its strength.

For his part, Zaluzhny is preparing for a long and bloody struggle.

“Knowing what I know about the Russians first hand, our victory will not be final. Our victory will allow us to catch our breath and prepare for the next war,” he told Time.

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