The ex-official was referring to recent remarks by Ukraine’s army commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, who claimed that the hostilities with Russia had reached a “stalemate.” This view sent ripples through Western media and even reportedly caused “panic” among some of Kiev’s backers.

“There is a conflict between the president and the military. But it is Zaluzhny who told the truth. Now we have a situation in which the commander-in-chief says one thing about the war and about the prospects for victory, and the president says something completely different. It is not a normal situation.”

Zelensky earlier this month disagreed with Zaluzhny’s assessment, though he acknowledged that Ukraine was in a “difficult” position. This came as Kiev’s faltering counteroffensive, which has been underway since early June, has not made any significant territorial gains. Moscow has estimated Ukraine’s losses at more than 90,000 service members since the push began.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu also said earlier this month that “the Kiev regime is losing” even “despite the supply of new kinds of NATO weapons.”

Meanwhile, Arestovich attributed the lackluster progress to Zelensky’s “ineffective” policies. “[This is] the main reason for the failed counteroffensive. Aid from the West is not being used correctly… The level of competence is insufficient, they have reached their ceiling,” he told the Spanish daily.

While suggesting that delays in Western military assistance undermined the Ukrainian offensive, giving Moscow ample time to reinforce its frontline defenses, Arestovich believes that the failure was caused by “a chain of reasons.” He criticized Zelensky for paying too much attention to Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut), a Donbass stronghold captured by Russian troops this spring after months of bitter fighting, to the detriment of the “strategic” southern front.

In light of all this, the ex-adviser called for the presidential election to be held next year, suggesting that new faces in the government would have a better chance of rectifying the situation. Earlier this month, however, Zelensky spoke out against holding the vote, pointing out that Ukraine is still under martial law.

Meanwhile, Arestovich himself has signaled that he would run for president if the election were to take place. However, he also suggested that Zaluzhny, who has risen to prominence in the midst of the conflict, could emerge as the “only real” challenger to Zelensky, even if he were reluctant to take on that role.

“There are cases in history when old wars between the states have not been legally concluded. An obvious example is Russia and Japan. They did not sign a peace agreement after 1945 due to [the dispute] over the Northern Islands, also known as the Kuril Islands in Russia. This territorial problem is now more than 70 years old,” Budanov wrote in an op-ed for NV magazine,

“This is why such a scenario is highly likely in our case, considering that Russia has significant territorial appetite when it comes to Ukraine, and not only pertaining to Crimea.”

Budanov’s assessment comes as Kiev’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, launched in the summer, has largely petered out without achieving any significant victories on the ground. Ukrainian troops struggled to break through fortified defense lines and cross thick minefields, losing many NATO-supplied tanks and other armored vehicles in the process. Speaking to the Economist this month, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, described the situation on the battlefield as “a stalemate”.

The prospects of a peace treaty between Moscow and Kiev remain bleak as both countries ruled out compromising with one another. President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top-ranking Ukrainian officials ruled out negotiations unless Russia surrenders its recently acquired territories. Moscow repeatedly said that it would be impossible.

Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia in 2014, following a Western-backed coup in Kiev that year. Four other former Ukrainian territories – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye – did the same after holding referendums on the matter in September 2022.

At the same time, President Vladimir Putin argued last month that Moscow was aiming not to acquire new lands, but to protect the people of Donbass and maintain its own security. He stated that the Ukrainian delegation was close to signing a neutrality pact in March 2022, but has since discarded preliminary agreements.

More and more Western leaders have reportedly conceded that the Russia-Ukraine conflict may drag on for another five years in a “stalemate” that neither side is capable of shattering.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is prepared to “give in”, and there is no sign that the conflict will end anytime soon, The Economist reported on Monday. The crisis has already strained the West’s military capacity amid struggles to produce enough artillery shells, the magazine said, and the Israel-Hamas war creates further stress.