“Anyone who underestimates Russia is headed for defeat”
An interview with Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s second most senior soldier
GENERAL OLESKANDR SYRSKY is late. He apologises when he eventually arrives, two hours behind schedule, at a location near his situation room in eastern Ukraine. War has a habit of surprising, he says: just when things appear fine, you are hit with a storm. Punching words out in a strained staccato, he appears exhausted by the stress of overseeing operations on Ukraine’s bloody eastern front. “The Russians aren’t idiots,” he says. “They aren’t weak. Anyone who underestimates [them] is headed for defeat.”
From the December 17th 2022 edition
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