We have some good news to share today! Zelensky for the first time seems to have ditched his comedic traits, he’s out of slumber now, it seems. Zelensky has taken a major step towards an all-out surrender before Russia.
Zelensky has signalled that he might consider a ceasefire with Russia, even if Russian forces still occupy parts of eastern Ukraine. This marks a massive shift in Zelensky’s stance, as he previously insisted that peace talks could only happen if Russia withdrew completely and Ukraine’s 1991 borders were restored.
In an interview with Sky News, Zelensky discussed this possibility with journalist Stuart Ramsay.
Ramsay referred to Trump, his incoming hawkish cabinet and some reports that US may propose a deal with Russia gets the land it wants and Ukraine gets the NATO membership.
Ramsay asked, “Ukraine joins NATO, but Russia takes control and keeps the land that it has to date. Would that be a possibility?”
Zelensky responded that this idea could potentially form the basis for a ceasefire. He explained that if Ukraine could quickly join NATO, it would mean that the areas currently free from Russian control would be protected under NATO’s security umbrella. He added that Ukraine could then work to regain control of the Russian-occupied territories through diplomatic means.
But Zelensky made it clear that this idea has not been proposed officially yet. He also emphasized that Ukraine would never formally give up its claims to Crimea or the other regions currently under Russian control. These include four areas that held referendums to join Russia last year, which Ukraine and most other countries do not see as legitimate.
“We cannot, by law, accept Russian occupation of our territory. That is impossible. That is against the Constitution of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. This means that, even if a truce is reached, Ukraine would still consider these Russia-occupied regions a part of its own land and would not legally acknowledge Russian control over them.
Ukraine has been trying to join NATO for years, and officially applied in September last year. However, NATO has made it clear that Ukraine cannot join the alliance while it is still in conflict with Russia. This is because NATO’s rules require all member countries to be at peace, and bringing in a nation actively at war would risk dragging the entire alliance into the conflict.
On the other side, Russia has its own conditions for peace. Moscow insists that Ukraine must withdraw its forces from the parts of the Donbass region still under Kyiv’s control. Russia also demands that Ukraine accept Russia’s current borders, including the annexed regions. Additionally, Russia wants Ukraine to remain neutral and abandon its plans to join NATO. Putin has on several occasions said that NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders was one of the main reasons for the conflict in the first place.
And last but not the least, Russia also wants Kyiv forces out of its Kursk region, where a massive Russian counter-offensive is about to begin. Anyway, Kyiv has already lost 40% of the Kursk region it once occupied.
We have come a long way, from Zelensky demanding nukes for his nation to now Zelensky being flexible, being aware about realities and being pragmatic and demanding a ceasefire now. It’s happening even before Trump takes the office. And it shows, if US wanted to end this war earlier, no force in the world would have stopped it. But no war would mean no money to fill the coffers of the military-industrial complex.
