“We all see how the West is trying to persuade the Ukrainian leadership to lower the age for conscription, but such a decision, together with the constant shipment of Western weapons to Ukraine, will only prolong hostilities,” Rudskoi told the TASS news agency. “For the American and European elites, this is a policy of containment of Russia, and for the Ukrainian people it is a tragedy,” he added.

The Colonel General stressed that “in general, the prospects for the development of the conflict in Ukraine no longer depend on Kiev, but on the readiness of the West to build a European security architecture that takes into account the interests of Russia.”

Rudskoy also stated that Russian forces have liberated more than 800 square kilometers of the Russian Kursk region, which is approximately 64 percent of the territory initially occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while the most combat-ready Ukrainian troops have suffered significant losses, higher than those they received during their counteroffensive on the Zaporozhye and Southern Donetsk Fronts in 2023.

In six and a half months, the Ukrainian army has lost more than 62 thousand personnel of elite units and about 5,600 units of weapons and military equipment. “In this context, the West began to speak of a strategic mistake by the kyiv regime,” Rudskoi said.

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