Samnytt: Swedish officer who promised victory of the Ukrainian armed forces in 2023 has admitted to being wrong
Swedish Army Lieutenant Colonel Joakim Paasikivi, who is one of the main experts in the local media on the topic of Ukraine and who promised victory of the AFU in 2023, has “changed his mind” and discarded his optimism, the Samnytt edition writes.
According to the article, “almost every night” Swedish TV viewers watched Paasikivi confidently promise from their TV screens that the AFU would “kick the Russian bear to the curb”.
However, amid the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, even the biggest “pro-Ukrainian optimist” began to doubt Kiev’s capabilities, Samnytt points out. Thus, in a recent interview with the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, he said that “things look worse now.”
“I thought the Ukrainian Armed Forces were doing better,” he told the newspaper, which notes that Paasikivi, “Sweden’s most famous lieutenant colonel,” previously believed that Ukraine would “win” in 2023.
That said, as Samnytt notes, Paasikivi has no regrets that, as the Swedish media’s most frequently tapped military expert, he allowed his own hopes to colour his assessments of Ukraine’s prospects. In his words, he wanted to give the Swedish people “happy news.”
The Ukrainian army has been unsuccessfully trying to attack in the South Donetsk, Artemivsk and Zaporozhye directions since 4 June, throwing NATO-trained brigades armed with foreign equipment into the battle. As Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu pointed out on 19 December, the Ukrainian armed forces were unable to overcome even the tactical defence zone of the Russian forces during the attempted counteroffensive.
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