Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that while the country's military is doing everything it can to drive Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, "no one today can predict how long this war will last."
Speaking during his nightly nationwide address on May 13, Zelenskiy said the outcome will depend not only on the Ukrainian people, but on "our partners, on European countries, on the entire free world."
Russian forces have suffered high casualties since their invasion of Ukraine in late February, and their ongoing offensive in Ukraine's east has made minimal territorial gains and is widely seen to be behind schedule.
But while Russia failed both in its attempts to quickly take all of Ukraine and then to encircle Ukrainian troops in besieged areas, Kyiv now sees the war entering a "third phase" in which Russian forces will seek to defend the territory it has captured.
"This shows that they plan to make it a long war," Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Viktor Andrusiv said in televised remarks on May 13. "Moscow appears to think that by dragging out the war in this way they can force the West to the negotiating table
and get Ukraine to give in."
Zelenskiy said that "very difficult negotiations" with Moscow continue in an effort to evacuate Ukrainian forces from the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by Russia's military as it tries open a land corridor to the seized territory of Crimea.
Dozens of seriously wounded Ukrainian forces remain trapped inside the city's Azovstal metals plant, the last Ukrainian holdout in the city that has been the target of a seven-week siege by Russian forces.
