The Ukrainian president has acknowledged, however, that his country needed a large infusion of sophisticated Western weapons to achieve this.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is adamant that a "stalemate" in his country's war against Russia is completely unacceptable and would simply bequeath the war to his country's children to fight.

He was commenting on the controversial opinion of his military commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who told The Economist last month, "Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate. There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough."

Zelensky was asked how he intended to break that stalemate, in a briefing for African journalists in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on Tuesday, 14 November. He insisted that a stalemate would not be allowed to stand.

"A stalemate is a frozen conflict which is a sleeping volcano. It's a matter of time for it to explode," he said.

He implicitly rebuked Zaluzhnyi by suggesting he had instilled despair in Ukrainians of their chances of ending the war and urged his people to be patient.

"Who is likely to invest in your country if you have a frozen conflict?" he asked. He noted that Ukraine had had a frozen conflict in its eastern Donbas region since Russia infiltrated it in 2014. Ukraine...