Czech President Petr Pavel believes Ukraine will be unable to liberate all territories occupied by Russia through military means, with the current lack of will in the West to provide sufficient military aid, he stated in an interview with European Pravda.
When asked about his previous statements suggesting Ukraine should prepare to end the war without fully restoring territorial control, Pavel explained his reasoning:
“It was quite obvious that if Western countries were not able, for good reasons, to assist Ukraine with combat forces because that would really mean war between NATO and Russia, it was only on material support and the material support was not that big to allow Ukraine a swift victory in this war.”
Pavel noted that Ukraine relies solely on its human resources, which are “limited and of course much smaller than Russian human resources.”
These factors led him to conclude:
“If there is no real will [of the West] to provide much more military support and with limited personnel, it will be impossible for Ukraine, without huge losses, to succeed in liberating territories that are occupied by Russia.”
According to the Czech President’s estimation, without changing these parameters, the Russian-Ukrainian war will most likely end with compromise.
Pavel emphasized that any compromise solution “shouldn’t be recognition of occupied territories as rightfully Russian but as a reality on the ground that part of territory of Ukraine is and will for some time be temporarily occupied by Russia.”
When questioned about whether there was a realistic chance to avoid this outcome with more rapid and larger-scale US military support, Pavel responded:
“Even before Ukraine started its big counter-offensive two years ago, it was not well-equipped to really succeed.”
Pavel stated that the military theory requires a force ratio of “at least three or preferably 5 to 1” for a successful offensive, noting that at that time, “the force ratio between Ukraine and Russia was still in favor of Russia.” This made it “quite obvious that counter-offensive will not be as successful to liberate all the territories.”
“We are where we are now, and I think what we need to do is maintain supporting Ukraine to an extent that it is able to maintain the territory, not to lose any further one, and create very soon conditions for ceasefire and subsequent peace,” Pavel concluded.
Presidential visit to Ukraine
The Czech president visited Ukraine on 21 March, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
During the visit, Petr Pavel told Zelenskyy that the Czech Republic will continue to provide defense support and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and will contribute to reconstruction, particularly in the areas of energy, water supply, and health care.
Pavel also visited an assembly production of Bren 2 assault rifles in Ukraine under license from Česká Zbrojovka company. Ukrainian Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin said that Ukrainian gunsmiths were trained in the Czech Republic, and “are now implementing NATO experience and technologies at the Ukrainian plant. So I showed Mr. President how the assembly process takes place at different stages. And also – the first assembled rifles.”
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