Ukraine’s armed forces believes that Russia will have a renewed attempt at capturing the capital Kyiv, after its previous attack was repelled earlier this year

The head of Ukraine’s armed forces believes that Russia will have a renewed attempt at capturing the capital Kyiv, after its previous attack was repelled earlier this year, Qazet.az reports.

In an interview with the Economist, Gen Valery Zaluzhny, said he was trying to prepare for Russian forces to have another go at taking the city, possibly in February or March.

Zaluzhny said that generals had worked out how many tanks, artillery and soldiers they need to repel another concerted effort by Russian troops. He said that Russian commanders had pulled soldiers back beyond the range of the US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, and that Ukraine hasn’t got anything longer range.

The 49-year-old made a comparison to the second world war, and said “somewhere beyond the Urals, they are preparing new resources”.

“According to my calculations it must have been three and a half or four years that they built [resources] up intensively: people, equipment, ammunition. I think they had three months’ worth of resources to achieve their goals. The fact that they have exhausted these resources and wasted their potential without achieving practically any result, shows that their position was chosen incorrectly. They now have to think again about how to get out of this situation.

“So most likely they are looking for ways to stop [fighting] and get a pause by any means: shelling civilians, leaving our wives and children to freeze to death. They need it for one simple purpose: they need time to gather resources and create new potential so they can continue to fulfil their goals.

“In my personal opinion, I am not an energy expert but it seems to me we are on the edge. We are balancing on a fine line. And if [the power grid] is destroyed … that is when soldiers’ wives and children start freezing. And such a scenario is possible. What kind of mood the fighters will be in, can you imagine? Without water, light and heat, can we talk about preparing reserves to keep fighting?”