https://sputnikglobe.com/20231114/coming-year-will-decide-fate-of-proxy-war-in-ukraine-top-zelensky-aide-admits-1114950687.html
Coming Year Will Decide Fate of Proxy War in Ukraine, Top Zelensky Aide Admits
Coming Year Will Decide Fate of Proxy War in Ukraine, Top Zelensky Aide Admits
Sputnik International
Ukraine’s NATO-backed summer counteroffensive’s disastrous collapse has sparked infighting between the Ukrainian government and military, with the US and its European allies turning their attention to the Middle East, and broaching the previously taboo topic of peace talks with Russia, which the West went out of its way to sabotage in 2022.
2023-11-14T14:49+0000
2023-11-14T14:49+0000
2023-11-14T17:15+0000
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hudson institute
ukrainian armed forces
yermak
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volodymyr zelensky
valery zaluzhny
ukraine
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kiev
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The coming year will prove “decisive” for both Washington and Kiev in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, Zelensky administration head Andriy Yermak has said.Assuring that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is still “developing,” and that Kiev knows “how to achieve victory,” Yermak said President Volovymyr Zelensky has “a clear plan,” the priorities of which include “the development of our defense industry, and the deploying of our own arms production. But [that] will be later. Meanwhile, we need weapons right now. Russia still has air superiority. It is still capable of producing missiles, doing evasion of sanctions…And we especially need air defense systems.”If "Ukraine stands and wins, the rules-based order stands and wins," the official said, suggesting that "as Ronald Reagan put it, we have come to a time for choosing. It is either up to freedom, law and order or down to totalitarianism. Ukraine’s choice is absolutely clear." On the subject of peace talks with Russia, Yermak dismissed any possibility of a settlement unless it's on Kiev’s terms. “We seek peace, but not just any peace. In our case, ending the war through compromise is nothing more than pausing it. Ukraine will not repeat the mistake of Minsk,” he said, referring to the 2015 Minsk Peace Agreement blueprint for ending the Donbass crisis, whose implementation Ukrainian governments blocked for more than seven years before the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown NATO-Russia proxy war in early 2022.Doom and Gloom Dominates CapitalsYermak’s remarks stand in stark contrast to the public mood in both Kiev and Washington following Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny’s bombshell interview with and article for a British business magazine earlier this month characterizing the conflict with Russia as a “stalemate” and admission that “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” in Ukraine’s blood-soaked counteroffensive.President Zelensky denied that the conflict had entered a "stalemate," and Zaluzhny’s comments were followed by the mysterious death of one of his aides in a live grenade explosion. Over the weekend, US media accused a Zaluzhny-affiliated general of organizing last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.Zaluzhny spoke to Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Brown on Monday, saying the situation was “complicated but under control,” and pointed to the “urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” including grenades, air defense equipment, and drones.In Washington too, the Ukraine conflict seems to have fallen on the back burner of America’s global geopolitical priorities as the US turns its attention to the crisis in the Middle East, and faces the threat of a government shutdown at home.Newly-picked House Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a stopgap government funding bill without aid to Ukraine or Israel last week which the Biden White House blasted as “extreme” and “unserious.” Lawmakers will have until this Friday to make a deal to avoid a shutdown, and disarm the threat of the United States defaulting on its gargantuan $33.7 trillion national debt.Amid the Ukrainian stalemate, the Palestine-Israel conflict and the debt showdown, anonymous US officials told media last week that quiet talks were underway between US and European officials on the one hand, and the Ukrainian government on the other, about possible peace talks with Russia.Western countries sabotaged a draft Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement in the spring of 2022, shortly after the conflict’s escalation, with then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flying to Kiev to instruct Zelensky not to sign a peace deal with Moscow.A year and a half and up to 190,000 Ukrainian casualties later, it remains unclear what Russia’s new peace terms might be. President Vladimir Putin said in July that the ball was in Kiev’s court as far as peace talks go, lamenting that the previous agreement had been shamelessly thrown “into the dustbin of history.”
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Coming Year Will Decide Fate of Proxy War in Ukraine, Top Zelensky Aide Admits
14:49 GMT 14.11.2023 (Updated: 17:15 GMT 14.11.2023) Ukraine’s NATO-backed summer counteroffensive’s disastrous collapse has sparked infighting between the Ukrainian government and military, with the US and its European allies turning their attention to the Middle East, and broaching the previously taboo topic of peace talks with Russia, which the West went out of its way to sabotage in 2022.
The coming year will prove “decisive” for both Washington and Kiev in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, Zelensky administration head Andriy Yermak has said.
“A turning point in the war is approaching,” Yermak
said at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based neoconservative think tank, on Monday evening. “The next year will be decisive in this regard,” he said.
Assuring that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is still “developing,” and that Kiev knows “how to achieve victory,” Yermak said President Volovymyr Zelensky has “a clear plan,” the priorities of which include “the development of our defense industry, and the deploying of our own arms production. But [that] will be later. Meanwhile, we need weapons right now. Russia still has air superiority. It is still capable of producing missiles, doing evasion of sanctions…And we especially need air defense systems.”
Yermak emphasized that US aid to Kiev was “not charity,” but an “investment” in the US’ continued "global leadership." He also downplayed a plethora of reports that cash and arms sent to Ukraine going missing, saying Ukraine can and does “account for every defense item we get.”
If "Ukraine stands and wins, the rules-based order stands and wins," the official said, suggesting that "as Ronald Reagan put it, we have come to a time for choosing. It is either up to freedom, law and order or down to totalitarianism. Ukraine’s choice is absolutely clear."
4 November 2023, 13:37 GMT
On the subject of peace talks with Russia, Yermak dismissed any possibility of a settlement unless it's on Kiev’s terms. “We seek peace, but not just any peace. In our case, ending the war through compromise is nothing more than pausing it. Ukraine will not repeat the mistake of Minsk,” he said, referring to the 2015 Minsk Peace Agreement blueprint for ending the Donbass crisis, whose implementation Ukrainian governments
blocked for more than seven years before the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown NATO-Russia proxy war in early 2022.
Doom and Gloom Dominates Capitals
Yermak’s remarks stand in stark contrast to the public mood in both Kiev and Washington following Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny’s bombshell
interview with and
article for a British business magazine earlier this month characterizing the conflict with Russia as a “stalemate” and admission that “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” in Ukraine’s blood-soaked counteroffensive.
President Zelensky denied that the conflict had entered a "stalemate," and Zaluzhny’s comments were followed by the
mysterious death of one of his aides in a live grenade explosion. Over the weekend, US media
accused a Zaluzhny-affiliated general of organizing last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.
Zaluzhny
spoke to Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Brown on Monday, saying the situation was “complicated but under control,” and pointed to the “urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” including grenades, air defense equipment, and drones.
In Washington too, the Ukraine conflict seems to have fallen on the back burner of America’s global geopolitical priorities as the US turns its attention to the crisis in the Middle East, and faces the threat of a government shutdown at home.
14 November 2023, 05:45 GMT
Newly-picked House Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a stopgap government funding bill without aid to Ukraine or Israel last week which the Biden White House blasted as “extreme” and “unserious.” Lawmakers will have until this Friday to make a deal to avoid a shutdown, and disarm the threat of the United States defaulting on its gargantuan $33.7 trillion national debt.
Amid the Ukrainian stalemate, the Palestine-Israel conflict and the debt showdown, anonymous US officials
told media last week that quiet talks were underway between US and European officials on the one hand, and the Ukrainian government on the other, about possible peace talks with Russia.
4 November 2023, 10:23 GMT
Western countries sabotaged a
draft Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement in the spring of 2022, shortly after the conflict’s escalation, with then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flying to Kiev to instruct Zelensky not to sign a peace deal with Moscow.
A year and a half and
up to 190,000 Ukrainian casualties later, it remains unclear what Russia’s new peace terms might be. President Vladimir Putin said in July that the
ball was in Kiev’s court as far as peace talks go, lamenting that the previous agreement had been shamelessly thrown
“into the dustbin of history.”
12 November 2023, 15:23 GMT
