MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny has come up with a plan of military operations, but it is hard to implement even with support from Western allies, a NATO general told Ukrainian news media in Brussels.

"Zaluzhny did not say he has no plan. Because he does have a plan. But to put this plan into action is an extremely difficult task, even with the support that the West provides to Ukraine," the general said, according to the Ukrainian news outlet Strana.

The general also conceded that Ukrainian forces "aren’t moving forward quickly enough" and that Zaluzhny has given an accurate assessment of the situation.

Many Ukrainian and Western news media have recently run reports that there’s a standoff between Zaluzhny and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The stories started appearing after Economist published an article by the Ukrainian commander and an interview with him, where he described the current status of the Ukrainian conflict as a stalemate. Zelensky's office expressed discontent over the publications, while the president himself said that he disagreed with the commander’s views.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said the very fact that the controversial article was published without permission from the country’s presidential office, with the message that had not been cleared by the office, makes no sense from the perspective of how a government apparatus should operate, suggesting that Zaluzhny regards himself an independent political figure.

Following the publication of the articles, Mariana Bezuglaya, a member of the committee for national security, defense and intelligence at the Ukrainian legislature, said Zaluzhny doesn’t have a plan for what to do next and urged him to resign. The head of the parliament’s pro-presidential faction, David Arahamiya, also said that the military leadership had no plan.