Zelenskyy Says War Has Stalled on Ground, Fight Shifts to Skies

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war with Russia has stopped moving on the battlefield and the decisive fight is now for the skies, in remarks posted on X from a Financial Times interview.

“The war continues, but the front is no longer moving,” Zelenskyy wrote. He said Ukrainian fighters stopped the ground war “with their lives.” With Russia unable to advance by sea, that leaves the fight in the air.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “already competitive” in the skies but called anti-ballistic defense a major problem. Ukraine was unprepared and inherited no Soviet anti-ballistic programs, he said — all of it went to Moscow. Without nuclear weapons, he wrote, “you are in the club of those who can be attacked.”

Ukraine will fight for the skies, he said, if partners keep funding its resilience, if its soldiers hold the battlefield, and if every kilometer costs Russia tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of troops. “Whoever is smarter is stronger, and that’s who will win,” he wrote.

Putin gave the strikes little thought while they fell short of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Zelenskyy said. The war felt far from the Kremlin. That will change, he said, when 1,000 drones reach Moscow instead of 100.

At that point, Putin will be advised to move somewhere beyond the Urals, Zelenskyy said.

The farther Putin is from Moscow, the closer the end of the war and peace will be. — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

He said Putin fears for his life, and that Moscow and St. Petersburg — where he said Russian elites make “the decisions to kill us” — will be reached.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine launched a Crimea operation of deep and mid-range strikes to slow the militarization of the Russian-occupied peninsula — targeting bases, weapons depots, air defenses, the sites Russia uses to launch aircraft and missiles, and supply lines. Ukraine cut off logistics and brought the fuel and energy sector under control, he said, showing what it means to operationally control the skies at a specific point and time.

Ukraine switched to Crimea after Novorossiysk and repeated strikes on Russia’s energy sector and port infrastructure, he said — the places where Russia makes the money it spends on bases and military production. Russian business has begun to understand it will not win the war, he said, and is losing time and money — and, he said, will lose hope, because many had counted on capturing Ukraine.

Deep strikes are difficult daily work — and work that has had a major impact, Zelenskyy said. The heroes are on the front line, and the entire state must keep supplying them. Victory, he wrote, means “a just and strong peace for Ukraine.”