For the head of Ukraine's Military Intelligence Kirlo Budanov, victory will not be "easy" but "it will happen" but rather assures that Ukraine will win the end of the war and will regain all the lands it lost, including the Donbass region and Crimea.
In an interview with the British Sky News channel, Budanov expected that this war would witness a "turning point" next August, and that Russia would be defeated "before the end of the year."
And Budanov - in the interview summarized by the French magazine L'obs - seemed optimistic about victory, highlighting at the same time that it would not be "easy".
These statements come at a time when particularly violent fighting is raging in Donbas (eastern Ukraine), which has been partly controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists, on which it has been focusing for the past weeks without much progress.
According to Budanov, the Russian army "is suffering heavy losses in men and equipment", especially since Ukraine knows "everything" about it, including its military plans, he said.
On the military side, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry estimates the Russian losses at more than 26 thousand men, 199 planes and about 1200 tanks since the invasion began on February 24.
However, there are no independent statistics for casualties from this war on both sides.
Budanov also claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "in very bad physical and psychological condition", stressing that at the same time he suffers from "several diseases, including cancer."
Particularly heavy fighting is taking place in the Donbass region, where Moscow is concentrating its attack on it without making any significant progress, as "Ukrainian artillery thwarts Russian efforts to gain territory including their efforts to cross the Donst River, affecting their ability to send large reinforcements to the north of Donbass," according to An American defense official.
Last Friday, the British Ministry of Defense stated that Ukrainian forces "successfully" repelled a Russian attempt to cross the aforementioned river near Severodonetsk, causing heavy losses to Moscow's forces.
It seems that the situation was reflected in the situation in Kharkiv, which was one of the priority targets for the Russians. A spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff says, "The main activity of the enemy in the Kharkiv region was the withdrawal of its units from this city."
The French magazine quoted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as saying Friday evening, in his daily message, that "the gradual liberation of the Kharkiv region proves that we will leave nothing to the enemy," declaring that the restoration of the lands that fell into the hands of Russia continues "to this day, 1015 towns have been liberated, including 6 towns in the last 24 hours.