(CNN) — Two articles published this week give a stark assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in its war with Russia. One – by the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military – admits the battlefield has reached a stalemate and a long attritional war benefiting Moscow beckons. The other portrays Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as exhausted by the constant effort to cajole and persuade allies to keep the faith.
Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, says in a long essay and interview with the Economist that “just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”
He acknowledges: “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” but instead an equilibrium of devastating losses and destruction.
At the same time, in an interview with TIME’s Simon Shuster, Zelensky says that “Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody.” But he adds that instilling those beliefs in Ukraine’s allies “takes all your power, your energy.”
Shuster, who has long had access to the president’s inner circle, portrays Zelensky as tired and sometimes irritable, and anxious that allied commitment is waning.
“Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave. You see it in the United States, in Europe,” Zelensky is quoted as saying.
But Zelensky is fixated with victory and won’t countenance a truce or negotiations. “For us it would mean leaving this wound open for future generations,” he tells TIME.
Five months after Ukraine launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive, Zelensky’s fears and Zaluzhny’s assessment come as the world’s focus shifts to the Middle East and the risk that Israel’s war with Hamas might spill over into a broader regional conflict.