Ukraine to Europe: Prepare for your own war with Russia

Russia is ready to “swallow” Europe whole, a top Ukrainian commander has warned - less than two months after he led a costly evacuation from a key city on the eastern frontline.
Speaking to The Independent from an undisclosed location in Donetsk, deputy commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, Maksym Zhorin, issued a troubling warning to Kyiv’s Western partners.
The West, he said, must urgently prepare. “Create serious defence systems that could counteract Russia because it will undoubtedly open its mouth and try to swallow the rest of Europe,” he warned.
The Independent says that it is the latest in a string of warnings from Ukrainian military and political figures that Russia will not stop with Ukraine. But it comes less than two months after Zhorin helped lead a difficult evacuation from Avdiivka, the first Ukrainian city to be taken over by Russia since last May, in part because a recent lack of Western military support had left Ukrainian forces there at a significant disadvantage.
Zhorin, more than most, knows the cost of an advancing Russia.
During his interview, the first with Western media since the fall of the city, Mr Zhorin was blunt about the reality of the eastern frontline while Western weapons supplies are delayed or simply being withheld - and he was frank about the future of European security.
A US military package worth roughly $60 billion has been in limbo in Washington for seven months, victim to squabbling politicians, while European partners have failed to send more than half of the million artillery shells they promised to Kyiv by this year, unable to agree on how to finance their production. Zhorin claims his unit has killed up to 15,000 Russians in the past few months alone - but the threat of another push by Putin’s forces is now real. And then, it’s Europe next.
“Use this time wisely,” the deputy commander says, addressing Kyiv’s Western partners directly.