Oleksii Arestovych made the remark in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, published on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Arestovych, who serves as an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said, as cited by PAP: "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin will probably want to deploy mobilised soldiers in the occupied territories, but it won’t be difficult for us to destroy these forces."
‘Poorly equipped, untrained’
According to the Ukrainian official, some 100,000 new Russian soldiers have already been sent to the front just days after being drafted.
These conscripts “are poorly equipped and lack basic training,” he added.
Arestovych warned: "In my view, a lot of them are going to die. Some have already fallen in the Kharkiv region."
‘Dozens’ already dead
He estimated that “dozens of new Russian draftees” may have been killed over the past few days.
Arestovych added, as quoted by PAP: “They are poorly equipped, lack medicine supplies and are armed with rusted rifles. They have had no training whatsoever, it’s terrible. It’s like sending schoolboys to fight a professional boxer."
The Ukrainian official told Bild, according to PAP: “We have destroyed the regular Russian army. Now they want to mobilise people to defend or attack.”
‘No winning strategy for Putin’
Arestovych also said: “The Russians have lost 70 percent of their army, I can’t see any winning strategy for Putin.”
He predicted that Putin “will now seek to defend the annexed territories and threaten us with tactical nuclear weapons.”
‘Even Russia’s nuclear weapons can’t stop us’
“Our president announced today that if Putin annexes our territories, there won’t be any negotiations,” Arestovych added. “We’ll fight. We won’t stop. Mentally we have already won, even [Russian] nuclear weapons can’t stop us."
“I don't think the war will last beyond the summer of 2023, unless it ends unexpectedly, if something happens in Moscow,” Arestovych told the Bild newspaper, according to PAP.
Putin last week mobilised 300,000 additional troops for his continuing invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s partial call-up has fueled public anger, led to an exodus of fighting-age men from Russia and sparked protests across the country, the Reuters news agency reported.
Thursday was day 218 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, onet.pl