- cross-posted to:
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Western leaders to pressure Russia into peace using “all means” necessary.
Mr Zelensky has long said he will not negotiate with Russia directly until Moscow’s forces leave all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
His call, however, comes as Russia makes gains against Ukraine, with Kyiv suffering from a shortage of Western-supplied weapons.
Russia was ready to make peace at the start of this thing but Zelenskyy let himself be dogwalked into rejecting the talks. Now he’s crying because he realizes that backing out of the Istanbul meeting was a huge mistake and maybe the west doesn’t have Ukraine’s best interest at heart. But even with the knowledge that the west is the worst ally one can have, he is still begging them for help, to the point where it looks like he’s calling for something horrible to happen in Russia (i.e. nukes). I don’t know what Putin’s stance is right now but maybe he’s still up for peace negotiations even after being rejected time and time again…
Putin is absolutely interested in negotiations if the constant statements from himself, his foreign minister, Russian media, etc are any indications. They just have to respect Russia’s original wants + the changing battlefield and the reality on the ground.
In practice that means:
Might be a few other things but that’s the gist of it. Other than the expanded cordon sanitaire that Putin wants after years of terrorist attacks deep into Russia with western missiles and the recognition of the eastern break-away territories which Putin was willing to see Ukraine maintained at the early peace talks in exchange for fair treatment of minorities the demands are basically the same as they’ve always been. It’s just the Ukrainian bargaining position has gotten much worse and after expending so much blood and treasure Russia is not going to budge on the territorial realities or on disarming them because they don’t want to have this fight again after all the tricks they’ve been subjected to in the past.
Problem is, Ukraine and EU violated every previous agreement with blatant premeditation and bad faith. Nobody should blame Russia for not trusting their words and papers anymore. Every further negotiation would be from the position of strenght.
Except now NATO has been disarmed (at least in Europe) - their stocks have been emptied and they have neither the industrial capacity nor the resources to produce the armaments; also - Ukraine has been bled dry, its infrastructure severely damaged, its remaining industry turned into rubble, and the most painful part - its non-Nazi people - those who weren’t interested in fighting, those who were kidnapped off the streets - sacrificed on the altar of Western capitalism/imperialism as cannon fodder. There’s not a lot of leeway to wiggle anymore
Zelenskyy is just a puppet on a string, he does what he’s told or he’ll be replaced. He also has a wife and children to think about. He’s basically a hostage at this point. Doesn’t excuse his behaviour, of course, but it does help to explain why he’d be behaving so rabidly.