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.”
Nor should they. And they own their oil discoveries.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Never bow to bullies.
Bully the bullies back.
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.
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?
“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!
Kinda seems like Ukraine are winning the war of attrition to me.
Capitulating to an aggressor isn’t going to save lives.
When you post about Ukraine on reddit you get conservative white Americans who have bought the propaganda and think strong, proud, masculine Putin is saving Ukrainian orphans from nazis, and have a mountain of arguments why we shouldn’t fund wars overseas unless it’s Israel, Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan. Or Venezuela of course.
You post about Ukraine on Lemmy and suddenly 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, and that it’s useless to resist a tyrant and invader because something something 21st century capitalism and oil economies and nothing will even change under Putin’s rule anyway so why are we even so worked up and on and on.
I feel bad for Ukrainian people having to endure not just a hostile invasion but scorn and skepticism from the whole world because some people have such loose, soupy brains that they have invent entire straw-universes to validate the erections they get thinking Putin’s bare chest.
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 Zelensky that says it, rumor has it Ukraine won’t give up land in exchange for peace
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.
too much gas/oil that russia desperately needs.
Demand reparations, send all the Russians back to actual Russia and Putin to The Hague
I know this is mostly a fantasy by now, but in actual reality, Russia obviously needs to give Crimea back to Ukraine and then continue minding its own fucking business.
whos going to make them? until europe invades, im sorry but you kinda have to hope the us does something
Yeah, that’s the fantasy part.
doh, my b missed that word
ContinueStart
Has Russia in its various incarnations, ever minded its own business? They’ve been a pain basically since their inception. Mostly because they seem to have predilection for some variation of oppressing their own people and then using those oppressed people to oppress more people.
There was about a 15-year window when they had a democracy and that’s been it.
There was about a 15-year window when they had a democracy
Are you talking about the 90s and early 2000s, when Russia experienced a drop in life expectancy on par with WWII? When foreign capital pillaged the country with the explicit purpose of making an example of them?
Here’s a link to The Shock Doctrine: Rise of Disaster Capitalism. It helps explain how things got bad enough that Vladimir fucking Putin seems like the lesser evil to the people who lived through it.
If anything, Russia should give up land to Ukraine!
Give back*!
You don’t reward a thief and murderer, you shoot them between the eyes. As a Dutchman, I wholeheartedly support shooting every uniformen 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
They do have a choice. When Russian frontline collapses in WWI, they started to make revolution in the Russia. Soldiers have all the guns, they have a choice, but they don’t use it or care to use it.
Most of the soldiers getting sent into the meat grinder are ethnic minorities from poor regions of Russia. They’re people that European Russians don’t care about.
putin is less likely to send muscovites or st.petersberg russians(aka white russians) thats where his influence is, if he starts to send those people, the people are going to riot.
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.
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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?
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.
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.
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 same orange shit stain is days away from de facto declaring war on Venezuela. Disgusting.
Good! Fuck Russia! Fuck Putin! Fuck Trump!
Good
