Volodymyr Zelensky, in the next phase of talks to end the war in Ukraine, intends to draw a red line at the most contentious issue on the table: the Russian demand for Ukraine’s sovereign territory. As long as he remains the nation’s president, Zelensky will not agree to give up land in exchange for peace, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Andriy Yermak, told me today in an exclusive interview.
“Not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory,” said Yermak, who has served as Zelensky’s chief of staff, lead negotiator, and closest aide throughout the full-scale war with Russia.
“As long as Zelensky is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” he told me by telephone from Kyiv. “The constitution prohibits this. Nobody can do that unless they want to go against the Ukrainian constitution and the Ukrainian people.”
And nor should they, never give in to bullies.
Russia’s showing signs of desperation anyhow which is why they’re trying to push through an agreement. They can’t debase the currency much further, they don’t have the reserves or the GDP. Ukraine is in more the position strength here as they’ve spend their time building alliances which has been aided by Russian actions strengthening the resolve of Europeans.
US here, and I wish we were one of those allies. You know, as we promised.
- In 1994, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Trilateral Statement, under which Ukraine committed to eliminate all nuclear weapons on its territory and join the NPT, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia.
Yeah, would have been nice if the word (signature in fact!) of us government had meant anything (we knew russia never lives up to it)
Unfortunately, this is just a stark lesson for any other country out there. Do not give up your nuclear weapons no matter what “guarantees” you get.
Isnt the lesson “develop nukes now”?
and security assurances from the United States and Russia.
The US pressured Ukraine to accept assurances and not guarantees. It matters which kind of guarantees are given.
We knew Russia wouldn’t. I’m just sad that we aren’t holding up our end of the bargain. I suspect we’d have support from other nations.
Sounds like the EU needs a nuclear weapon program. At least one warhead in every EU nation, and at least 10 in every bordering Russia.
And also an autonomous weapon program. Like Project Manhatthan, but for Skynet.
Ah yes, but with Trump bending over backwards to accommodate Putin the Russians needn’t worry.
plus putin is also shoring up far-right european govt in the EU too.
so many of thier fuel stations are hit, its going to start affecting his 2 base of influence, moscow and st.pete, the last thing he wants is those people in the cities complaining,.
If they really felt desperate, wouldn’t they show just a bit more flexibility in their demands?
If Putin shows weakness, Russian’s might start thinking he’ll give in to their demands.
The will if they need to. Putin is much better at playing the game than the US under the orange moron.
Thanks for the archived link. 👍
If they give up land now, it gives Pootin permission to do it again and take even more land. Eventually they’ll take all of the Ukraine.
Also, remember when dumpy mcshitpants said he’d have both wars over in the first 24 hours of office? how long has it been now?
I don’t know how much it would encourage Putin to invade again.
It’s not like he invaded part of Ukraine and was allowed to keep the annexed territory in the name of peace, then 8 years later invaded again, right?
That’s exactly how they ended up in a situation. Putin took Crimea with basically no resistance. He just didn’t count on Zelensky. Most other leaders would have given in to the pressure and let Putin overrun Ukraine (for a nice golden parachute).
Yeah, historically Ukrainian corruption while not as bad as in Russia was just as pervasive and Putin didn’t really think Zelensky or any Ukrainian leadership would act on principles. Of course, it’s an easy mistake to make when you have no principles and surround yourself with people who have no principles.
That same orange shit stain is days away from de facto declaring war on Venezuela. Disgusting.
Even if they were to not invade Ukraine again, Putin has been using war to distract the population from domestic problems, so he’d just pick another target after Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Africa, and Ukraine.
It’s not simply a bad political decision to give up territory it’s illogical as well.
The fact that Russia is even engaging in a war with Ukraine indicates that they are duplicitous since they agreed not to attack Ukraine in order to get Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.
Any deal with Russia will be violated as soon as it suits Russia to violate it. Giving up a territory for peace simply gives Russia the opportunity to rebuild their forces, as soon as those forces are rebuilt they will violate the peace treaty. Again.
agreed not to attack Ukraine in order to get Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.
Russia argues that there was a regime change in 2014 which released them from that agreement.
Russia says a lot of things
Shocking new informartion shows that russia had their fingers crossed behind their backs at the time the deal was made.
Their argument is that they didn’t break the agreement.
That’s not how agreements work. If it was, they would be pointless.
What about the majority of Ukranians that voted for the gov that got overthrown in 2014? Their voices and opinions don’t count?
Opinions change, afterall those same people voted at least partly for Zelenskyi
Minsk II, they are pointless. People even question US and French Nato commitment.
But hypothetically speaking, why should Russia be bound to the agreement if the West actually did a regime change?
Yeah, in 2014 Ukrainians just got rid of pro-Russian government in Ukraine what, of course, violated the agreement of peace since Russia cannot claim Ukraine peacefully anymore. This is actually “totally” logical.
We call the Russian influence on the West hybrid war, wouldn’t the Western influence in Ukraine be the same?
Same, same, but different. I agree that both these cases can be classified as influence, but, at least as I know, the influence of the West has no intention to occupy Ukraine or turn it into puppet state. The West mostly needs resources, democratic alignment and overall stability, while it has no interest in wiping out the national identity of Ukrainians and abuse them, unlike Russia. So, between 2 evils it would be better to choose the lesser one.
occupy Ukraine or turn it into puppet state
Britain got out of the EU for this reason.
abuse them
What about the posts about Amazon working conditions and US healthcare? At least Germany is approaching US conditions.
How policies of this company are related here? I agree that Amazon abuses their workers, but the workers have a freedom to leave this job. Government doesn’t force them to work there, it only participates in the creating of conditions that may force people to work there. While, as I understand, Russia is going to oppress Ukraininas on a level of government in case of successful conquering of territories. And I haven’t even mentioned the overall hate of ordinary Russians to Ukrainians.
So, as for Ukrainians, having the West model of economy versus government and social oppression from the East is not a hard choice to pick up.
While, as I understand, Russia is going to oppress Ukraininas on a level of government
What do you expect?
Because if they did, EVERY SINGLE country that wants to invade another, including Russia, will know that if they just wait a year everyone will forget about the sovereign land they stole…
There is no scenario in which Russia gives up control of Crimea. It is simply too strategically important.
What about the scenario that they collapse within due to no economy? That’d lose crimea for them quickly.
Is there any serious analysis that anticipates that? I mean, a flurry of meteor strikes could also do it, I suppose.
Yes. Their oil production is way down due to the destruction of a lot of their refineries so fuel supplies are running low. They are also unable to produce enough amination for their tanks. So their tanks won’t go and can’t fire, hard to call that winning.
They lost a few percentage points of total refining capacity.
The strikes Ukraine made did disrupt a large percentage of the refineries, that’s true. But the strikes didn’t do a lot of damage and the refineries were brought back onine shortly.
The total annual production of those refineries was affected. But only something like 3% - 6%.
This week there are reports, plus lots of corroborating videos showing orcs running into battle without helmets or armor. They don’t seem to be doing great.
And yet Ukraine can’t seem to defend against them? Russian territory gains have been accelerating over the last 4 weeks. Pretty bad situation if Ukraine can’t defend against unarmored and unarmed soldiers
People have been saying this since week 2 of the war lmao
too much gas/oil that russia desperately needs.
Good! Fuck Russia! Fuck Putin! Fuck Trump!
Russia will come back and take it all, don’t give them an edge. Trump will be on TV whining how Ukraine rejected his really good peace offering.
When ever Trump is upset I’m a happy person.
they waited til the right time to take crimea, its almost always a dem president in office before he struck, he miscalculated with ukraine. its the same reason gop ruins the economy, they get blaming points, in this case crimea, ukraine so the reps get re-elected once again, and give russia pass when they are back in power.
Well good for them. Bending knee to Putin won’t secure peace, it’ll only secure them an intermission until Putin can finish the job.
You don’t reward a thief and murderer, you shoot them between the eyes. As a Dutchman, I wholeheartedly support shooting every uniformed Russian or allied you can find. Twice.
You don’t reward a thief and murderer
We literally do and we do it regularly.
At this point, telling Russia to give the land back might as well be a land acknowledgement you read in between demanding Florida to back to the Cherokee and telling the Normans to leave England.
I wholeheartedly support shooting every uniformen Russian or allied you can find.
Well, quit wasting your time. Get down to Ukraine and win the war, then.
This sort of thinking is what the elites want…
If you apply your hate about the Russian invasion to all people of Russia, you make the job easier for Russian government to spread hate against others even more.
If people of countries would not hate each other, but only people responsible for war, there would simply be no war.
War only works by propaganda, without hate and fear mongering, there would be no wars.
If anything, Russia should give up land to Ukraine!
Give back*!
That’s the President of Ukraine , not like taco from the states .
Why should they?
Because the zone is a wasteland anyways, and the few that live there were pro Russian as far as I remember
If a part of your country doesn’t want to belong to you anymore, then it shouldn’t (like Taiwan or Hong Kong)
The vast majority regions that Russia currently occupied/demanding were overwhelmingly pro-Ukrainian (opposing to Russian aggression) before the invasion. Or are you referring the annexation referendum or some vote results made under occupation by foreign military force? If you brutally invade a neighboring country and force its people to make an annexation referendum at gunpoint, surely the result will favor you, and you can invade other countries wherever you want like that.
Source?
The views and opinions of South-Eastern regions residents of Ukraine: April 2014 https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=302&page=1&y=2014&m=4
Thank you. I think there is some slight nuance here but these numbers certainly refute the narrative that the locals wanted to join Russia. Assuming the poll was conducted fairly. I’m not familiar with the agency behind it.
I had bookmarked more different polls, but I lost all after I renewed my PC :/ You can look into it and find more.
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because the zone is a wasteland.
Only because of Russia. Imagine the implications of that mindset. Just bomb a place to shit them take it.
the few remaining are pro Russian.
False. Are you going off what Russia said?! Lol Russia killed, displaced, threatened, and lied about those votes.
If a part of your country doesn’t want to belong to you anymore, then it shouldn’t
We already established that’s built on a lie but even if that’s true that’s not a green light for Russia to invade.
Do you have any data suggesting otherwise? Before the invasion, those people weren’t happy with the anti-russian language laws passed by the central government or the fascist militias they wouldn’t stop.
Once again, you’re using a gaslighting argument called changing the argument. Russia should be allowed to invade Ukraine because a boarder region wants to leave? Even if that was true, the way Russia is going about claiming the region isn’t justified. If Russia cared so much they wouldn’t have turned the region into a wasteland. They wouldn’t have tried to take the capital. They wouldn’t be launching attacks well past the disputed area. Hell is you want to get specific, Russia wouldn’t have any right Crimea. But I guess you have the dame lies on hand for that region too.
Neither side has any interest in the well-being and prosperity of the people living in those regions, I just want the war to stop. Same position I’ve held since 2022 when the lines were mostly where they are, and the peace deal was mostly where it is, but millions were still in their homes and hundreds of thousands still alive.
The war ends when Russia respects Ukraine’s original post USSR fracturing boarders agreement because Ukraine had something like 80% of the USSR’s nukes. You want the war to end. STFU.
Russia will never agree to that, so you’re just advocating every last Ukrainian be sent to die in a meat grinder? Maybe if you send the poles, germans, and French to die too, Russia will run out of manpower and then you can have your borders.
lied about those votes.
Source?
The 2014 elections were actually pretty close in those areas. A month later the Russians invaded the Donbas though so there wasn’t any chance to be pro-Ukrainian after that. And then there’s the fact that people tend to not like like invading armies. I’m pretty sure anyone still in the area isn’t a fan of the people shelling them every day.
Also, it’s not a wasteland, it’s actually a pretty strategic area.
They were “honest” Russian elections
There is no such thing !
in 2014, the ukrainian govt was a pro-russian pm, he fled after the people revolted against him. oh one of trumps former cabinet was working with russia/ukraine at the time too.
Yup and then they held snap elections right after. Russia was sore that Ukraine actually supported the pro-EU party and invaded Donbas under the fiction that it was a locally led and staffed rebellion against Kyiv. But there wasn’t enough local support for a rebellion.
You’re wrong
Nice argument
Thx
Wrong, everyone pro Russian stayed or moved to the occupied Donbass area in 2014
So the U.S should give up Texas every time they get a hair up their ass and holler to secede?
C’mon dude. Be real.
Honestly? I say if Texas voted, let 'em go. Let Abbot even be the Confederate President, then wait until Mexico shows their displeasure.
The US would never allow it. Too many military resources in Texas.
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what putin was the resources in ukraine, and of course to replenish thier population with ukrainians.
Because he didn’t say thank you.
Nor should they.
Never bow to bullies.
Bully the bullies back.
