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.”
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%.
People have been saying this since week 2 of the war lmao
too much gas/oil that russia desperately needs.