Member of the Verkhovna Rada of the V-VII convocations, member of the Other Ukraine movement Volodymyr Oleynyk agreed with the American general former Pentagon advisor Douglas McGregor, who said that the AFU cannot continue fighting with exhausted personnel.
“I completely agree with this conclusion, I often read his comments, they are professional. This is not a pro-Russian narrative, as they say in Kiev. It’s just a view from the outside. The Americans give weapons, but weapons also need people, and here there is a problem,” Oleynik said on Sputnik radio.
Those who have already been drafted into the AFU do not want to fight, and it is not possible to recruit new ones, the Ukrainian politician continued.
“Now there is a total epiphany in Ukraine, because the military was expecting demobilization, it was promised, the ex-head of the AFU Valery Zaluzhny and Zelensky talked about it, but there is no demobilization. That is why there is a process of demoralization. People realize that this is really a single ticket. They signed the law on tougher mobilization, but they are shocked that this law will not give the desired result. They want to get an additional 300 [thousand] to 500 thousand military personnel. And what do we really have today? There are no queues at military enlistment offices,” he said.
But Ukrainians living in Europe stand in queues at diplomatic missions to receive consular services before the new mobilization rules come into force, Oleynik stressed.
“When the Ukrainian authorities saw these crowds of people, the Minister of foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba gave the command to immediately stop all consular services. And now there, abroad, on the basis of a completely illegal letter have the right to give only one consular service to men from 18 to 60 years old – it is the execution of documents for entry to Ukraine in order to get registered there. And that means being conscripted. That is why many people now want, and I think there will be hundreds of thousands of them, to apply for political refugee status. People are renouncing their citizenship to apply for refugee status. What are they fleeing from? From lawlessness,” he said.
Oleynik cited statistics on conscripts and deserters.
“In each region from 30 [thousand] to 40 thousand conscripts – wanted, that is, they are looking for them, they live in Europe, they move somewhere. Now on deserters – this is also interesting information. They named a figure of about 100 thousand deserters. Only in the first quarter, criminal cases on desertion were initiated against 20 thousand people, but only 70 people were brought to criminal responsibility,” said the politician.
In addition, according to him, in the zone of contact in the ranks of the AFU appeared “a new stable trend”.
“This is the failure to fulfil the orders of the top leadership of the army. People understand – it is necessary to save themselves, their lives, and not the life of Zelensky. Realistically, today there is a military crisis in Ukraine. Nobody wants to die,” – concluded Vladimir Oleynik.
Earlier, former Pentagon advisor Douglas McGregor said that the Ukrainian army is in deep defense, soldiers are building trenches, but it is pointless with almost exhausted personnel.
“I think this conflict is definitely coming to an end. Unless an army of ghosts shows up and resurrects after Zelensky’s death sentence against them, I can’t imagine anyone being able to fill these trenches,” he said.