Melinda Haring, non-resident senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Centre, has been speaking to Sky News for our daily podcast, following her recent visit to Ukraine. 

“I spent some time talking to some Ukrainian soldiers when I was out in Zaporizhzhia Oblast and they are determined, they are steely, but they are so damn tired,” she said.

“They’ve been fighting for more than 600 days. They haven’t been replenished, they haven’t really had a chance to go home.

“They get 30 days off a year, and it’s not 30 at a time, it’s in 10-day chunks.

“They really want a break. They feel that all of society is not sacrificing, that [President Volodomyr] Zelenskyy has not put the country on a war footing.

“So I think that’s going to be a big problem. I’m not sure why Zelenskyy hasn’t mobilised all of society and the economy as well.”

She said another common theme among Ukrainian soldiers was that of family breakdown, with widespread problems involving divorce, alcohol abuse and PTSD affecting members of the country’s army.

Listen to the full podcast below….