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.”
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?
Kinda seems like Ukraine are winning the war of attrition to me.
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.
Capitulating to an aggressor isn’t going to save lives.
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 clearly is, or you wouldn’t be telling them the terms for peace.
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