Valeriy Markus spoke about the weak points of the army, the failure of the counteroffensive, and the future of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

"We don’t have an army as a system. There are units in the General Staff where there isn’t a single contract soldier — and these people work on software, intelligence. They are the brain of the army. If they were to be demobilized tomorrow — there would be no army. Only the directors would remain. The paradox is that right now we have a chance we never had because we gained experience only we have on the planet. If used wisely — we will be the most combat-ready army in the world.

I can count on one hand the generals in the army one can deal with. I can publicly name one person — the Deputy Minister of Defence, Lieutenant General Yevhen Moysyuk. But even he, essentially, is not in the army. I respect [the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine] Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, so I will not allow myself to publicly give him any characterizations. I’ll just say that he has done a lot [to improve the command staff].

It was clear that the counteroffensive had failed in the first two hours. We did everything wrong. From documents to who was appointed to lead it. My problem was that I believed the stories about "young promising officers" who would plan everything well. The line of Russian defence that we were breaking through — it wasn’t even in the counteroffensive plan. We weren’t supposed to stop there for even a minute. We didn’t even reach the first planned line. We were supposed to pass two or three in one night."