Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Tuesday that the war with Moscow was entering a “protracted phase”. “Russia is preparing to carry out a long-term military operation,” he also declared before the European Union Defense Ministers and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
According to him, Russian troops are currently fortifying their positions in the territories they occupy in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, in order to “go into defensive mode if necessary”. “Currently, the main efforts of the Kremlin are focused on attempts to encircle and destroy the regrouping of Ukrainian armed forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions”, in the east of the country, partly in the hands of pro-Russian separatists, he continued.
