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.
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.
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.
Ah yes, but with Trump bending over backwards to accommodate Putin the Russians needn’t worry.
If they really felt desperate, wouldn’t they show just a bit more flexibility in 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. 👍
Don’t give up a single meter of land
Require reparations from Russia
Demand all children back
Demand a formal apology for the pain and suffering caused
Demand Putin in jail through the ICC
Don’t give up a single meter of land
By doing what?
A little tired of hearing this endless “well, if I were Ukraine, I would simply win the war and claim a trillion dollars in reparations and make Russia disappear off the map” Internet wish casting.
What do you do to extract any of these concessions that hasn’t already been tried? And how many more people are you willing to throw into the meat grinder trying?
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every tankie hiding in the shadows can’t take the pressure anymore and HAVE to pile out to whinge about how unwinnable the war is
Being a Tankie is when you don’t want to fight a war? But being a conservative is when you do want to fight a war? And they’re both on the same side?
I feel bad for Ukrainian people having to endure not just a hostile invasion but scorn and skepticism
I feel bad for anyone trapped in a warzone and treated like fodder for the war machines.
But I’ve got no pity for the cheerleaders on the sidelines eager to trade human bodies for rhetorical points.
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There are a lot of people who have sacrificed their lives to defend their homes from invaders.
That’s not some kind of virtue. Make the other fucker die for theirs, etc.
But once you’re dead, it’s not your land anymore. Telling tens of thousands of additional Ukrainians to die so the state can auction off a dead guy’s property to Jared Kushner’s holding company is fucked.
Don’t bother replying unless you want to keep showboating for others.
🚢
It’s not our decision to make how many people Ukraine is willing to sacrifice for their land. That’s THEIR decision.
The better question here is how many people is Russia willing to sacrifice for a war of conquest that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
It’s not our decision to make how many people Ukraine is willing to sacrifice
It clearly is, or you wouldn’t be telling them the terms for peace.
The better question here is how many people is Russia willing to sacrifice
They’re not the ones negotiating loss of territory. You gotta quit this “Well I’m rubber and your glue” line of reasoning.
It’s our decision whether we give them billions of dollars of weapons.
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Absolutely it is. We choose whether we live in a world where we defend freedom or where we appease bullies.
I guess for some people it’s an easier choice than for others.
Is that why Ukraine is over $100 billion in debt to its Western “allies”?
Putting people into debt slavery is a weird way to defend freedom…
Debt is a normal part of war, and Ukraine’s war debt is about a quarter of their peacetime GDP. Most of that has already been covered by the EU aid package last year.
Characterizing that as debt slavery is a pretty huge stretch.
At this scale those debts are a chain around their necks that can be used to control them.
As for the aid package, it merely covers half of the debt. On top of that? It’s conditional! Ukraine has to meet certain requirements to receive that aid: energy, border management, agricultural demining, and the development of a list of “strategic and essential” raw materials. Aside from demining that doesn’t sound like defending freedom, that sounds like they are trapping a client state into dependency so they can be exploited for primary production.
This has never been about freedom, I don’t know how anyone could ever believe it was.
We don’t give them shit, we sell it to them on loan with interest. It’s all old hardware that we don’t use anymore. It’s a win win, our military budget goes down, they kill Russians. how do you not understand that 4 years into the war?
So, we’re trapping them in debt slavery so that we can steal their natural resources. They die, we profit. Win/Win
Also, it’s not like those profits go to us. They go to the manufacturers and their investors, with only some coming back in the form of wages. It’s mostly a way to take public dollars and then hand it out to political donors. Win/Win/Win
Capitulating to an aggressor isn’t going to save lives.
Nobody in this thread seems interested in saving lives. It is entirely an argument over territorial control
Giving a country with a track record of violating treaties as long as Russia’s anything that lets them feel like they gained from the war in return for a treaty saying they’ll stop the war is going to cost more Ukrainian lives than continuing to fight, even to the last man. All a peace treaty like that achieves is vindicating Russia’s decision to violate the last treaty. It doesn’t stop the war, just pauses it while Russia rearms, so it can be even bloodier when it resumes than it would have been if it hadn’t paused. If Ukraine can’t make Russia lose, more Ukrainians (and more citizens of Russia’s other neighbours who are at risk of being next in line) survive if they make Russia’s victory pyrrhic so they learn that it isn’t profitable to invade their neighbours again.
Giving a country with a track record of violating treaties as long as Russia’s
Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate
The title of the book, Not One Inch, refers to James Baker’s famous statement to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand “not an inch” to the east.
A good book and worth a read, if you’re genuinely curious at the history leading to the current crisis.
But it’s a hard read for anyone who believes history started in 2014
What? I’m here telling you that if you want to save lives, don’t capitulate to the country killing everyone.
As any child knows, if you let a bully take your lunch money they’re just going to come back tomorrow.
I’m here telling you that if you want to save lives, don’t capitulate to the country killing everyone
That hasn’t proven out over the last 3 years. The death toll in Ukraine has significantly outrun every other Russian conflict since WW2.
As any child knows
When you think like a child, you get the results to match
It’s Zelensky that says it, rumor has it Ukraine won’t give up land in exchange for peace
“How many people are you willing to throw into the meat grinder”
Yes us lemmy posters are all high ranking Ukrainian officials. Our moral inputs into this site dictate outcomes on the battle field and our opinions hold us accomplice to the slaughter. Putin is not responsible at all; it’s the people posting on the internet!
Yes us lemmy posters are all high ranking Ukrainian officials.
101st chairborne, to be sure. Tons of folks seem to think this war is a team sport that you just cheer at from the sidelines.
Kinda seems like Ukraine are winning the war of attrition to me.
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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).
That same orange shit stain is days away from de facto declaring war on Venezuela. Disgusting.
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?
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
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.
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.
In all fairness, I think kost Russian soldiers aren’t there by much choice, Putin loves his meat grinder and has pulled well over a million Russians through it.
Yes, that is a problem that Russians should fix themselves, but still. Any soldiers surrendering should be treated well. Show them they’ve really been figuring on the wrong side
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.
If anything, Russia should give up land to Ukraine!
Give back*!
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Why should they?
Never bow to bullies.
Nor should they. And they own their oil discoveries.
