Ukraine’s intelligence chief tells when war’s decisive battles will take place 

Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov shared the information in an interview with Forbes.

When asked by a journalist having applied a football analogy to the 12 months of the full-scale war, what is the current score and what is the minute of the match, he answered, "The score is 1:1, and the minute is 70. This is a subjective vision."

According to him, the first thing Ukraine should do is to reach the administrative borders of 1991, "everything else will be decided later."

At the same time, Budanov rejects any, even the smallest, territorial concessions.

"For me, as a patriot and a military man, the surrender of even a millimeter of territory is a disaster. This is my personal logic, you can agree with it or not. From a military point of view, holding Bakhmut allows us to deter Russia in that area and inflict catastrophic losses on them," the Defense Intelligence chief said.

• On February 20, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that it was important for the country to defend Bakhmut, however not at any cost, but as long as it was reasonable.