What does Ukraine need to win the war? (with retired general Ben Hodges) - DW News [View all]

[TexasTowelie]

Ben Hodges, a retired general who was the commander of the US army in Europe, says Russia has consistently struggled with adapting to the challenges it faced on the battlefield.

Hodges told DW that Russia's military chiefs "are not stupid, but they do not have a culture that allows critical self-reflection. And if you want to improve, especially in the short amount of time, you have to be honest about what went wrong."

"Instead, what you see is guys like [Yevgeny] Prigozhin publicly blaming the general staff for not supporting him more," Hodges said, referring to the owner of the Wagner Group of mercenaries and his row with the Russian army.

Nine years after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine, Russian military ranks "still have not figured out a coherent command structure that gets all of their advantages into the fight at the same time," he said.

"On the other hand, the Ukrainians who started off with every disadvantage except for the fact that they're defending their own country, have a much more Western approach to this adapting to new technologies," he added. "I've never seen soldiers learn new equipment as fast as the Ukrainian crew."

DW also spoke with Igor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, about Zelenskyy's plan to have a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"The role of China is really important not only in Asia, but worldwide," Zhovkva said.

Zelenskyy is "ready to share with Xi Jinping Ukraine's understanding of what is going on … Ukraine's understanding of how we want to bring peace not only to Ukraine but to this part of the world," Zhovkva said, referring to Ukraine's 10-point peace formula.

Asked about US intelligence that China may be planning on sending weapons to Russia, he pointed to earlier Chinese comments that it was not planning on such a move.