Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the
new peace initiatives proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin because he is afraid his political career will end once the conflict is resolved, British expert Alexander Mercouris
said on his YouTube channel.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been “calling time on him, saying that Zelensky is no longer the legitimate president of Ukraine,” the expert noted.
The stark reality of the situation, according to Alexander Mercouris, is such that “this is the last chance” the Ukrainians and their Western sponsors have to come to some sort of terms. If the conditions laid out by Russia are not accepted, the bloodshed will continue, Russia will win, “as all trends on the battlefield prove,” he noted.
According to the pundit, this is the last proposal of this kind that Russia is prepared to make, and its rejection will mean that Russia will eventually demand nothing but “unconditional surrender from Kiev.”
Furthermore, in speech on June 14,
Putin gave a very clear warning that “
the West is acting very dangerously," Mercouris pointed out.
The analyst slammed the “
utterly irresponsible, senseless talk” from individuals like former
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen's suggestions to “
call Putin’s bluff.”
The Russian diplomatic objective from now on, Alexander Mercouris believes, is to work towards achieving a restructuring of the security situation "not just in Europe, but in Eurasia as a whole."
Commenting on the Ukrainian authorities' reaction to Vladimir Putin's peace proposal, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that Volodymyr Zelensky is"
not the person with whom you can fix agreements in writing, because de jure the agreement would be illegitimate."