After almost five years of carnage during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps the key is not the questions themselves, but how they are asked. Proof of this are the statements the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, made this Monday in an interview with the British network . The leader of a country that has once again suffered Russian bombings this weekend, with energy infrastructure as a major winter objective, has been asked if he believes that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is willing to provoke a hypothetical World War III.
Zelensky explained that it is not that he is going to decant it, but that it is already happening. “I think Putin has already started it [la III Guerra Mundial]”, he replied, also proposing a change of wording in the question. For the Ukrainian president, “the question is how much territory he will be able to conquer [Putin] and how to stop it.” In Zelensky’s opinion, “Russia wants to impose a different way of life on the world and change the life that people have chosen for themselves.”
It is not the usual rhetoric and discourse that characterizes this entrenched conflict and in which no progress is achieved at the negotiating tables in the face of the red lines that have always marked the demands and minimums of both parties. The party attacked since the beginning of Putin’s “special military operation”, which was to last only a few weeks and tomorrow will be five years in progress, maintains today the same as at the beginning. There will not be a single territorial transfer, neither real nor on paper, for the land that Moscow has dominated for some time.
Neither hand over what remains of the Donbas, nor give up Crimea
Zelensky had already made it clear repeatedly, the last one just a few weeks ago, that his plans were not to sign any treaty that would recognize the territories currently under Russian control, but that this also includes Russia’s biggest claim at the moment to move towards a lasting truce. That kyiv withdraw from the 20% of the territory it still controls in Donetsk – along with Lugansk, one of the two provinces of this mining basin full of rare earths.
the idea of ceding the Donbas, a demand from Putin that the US has left in its talks and which has urged kyiv to accept in order to end the conflict. But, this time, the Ukrainian president has introduced nuances other than territorial – and logically, economic -, referring specifically to the civilian population residing in said provinces annexed by the Kremlin – along with Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
“I don’t see it simply as a land issue. I see it as an abandonment: weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our compatriots who live there. That’s how I see it. And I’m sure that this ‘withdrawal’ would divide our society,” said Zelensky, who in recent years has faced numerous internal problems and is questioned about the lack of elections that he criticizes for not being able to call due to the lack of guarantees for their development in a war context.
What would be a victory for Ukraine?: return to “the fair borders of 1991”
All in all, Zelensky has explained that signing an agreement now with Russia handing over the Donbas “would probably satisfy” Putin, pointing out that the Russian leader – and his Army – “needs a break.” But Zelensky is clear that “once he recovered,” he would return to the fray and “would want to continue.” kyiv maintains that Moscow “could recover in no more than a couple of years”, after the high investment in Defense made.
So, what is Zelensky’s recipe? “Will we lose? Of course not, because we are fighting for the independence of Ukraine,” Zelensky assured, explaining that the goal, what they would consider the victory of his country, would be to force Russia to peace, but in the terms of “the fair borders of 1991.” That is to say, Zelensky does not renounce Donbas, nor the parts taken in Zaporizhia – especially the largest nuclear power plant in Europe – or in Kherson – key to maritime control and the Dnipro River. He wants back the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed after an independence referendum with hardly any international recognition.
