An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Financial Times that Kyiv would be “ready” to negotiate the status of Crimea with Russia if it launches a successful counteroffensive and captures the territory Russia controls that borders the peninsula.
“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” said Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office.
Sybiha’s comments are the first sign that Ukraine might be willing to seek a diplomatic solution with Russia over Crimea. Kyiv cut off peace talks with Moscow in April 2022. Since then, Zelensky and his top aides have called for a complete Russian withdrawal from all the territory it controls, including Crimea, before any negotiations can resume.
Zelensky signaled he was thinking about the possibility of negotiations last week when he said if Ukraine lost the Donbas city of Bakhmut, he would be pressured to “compromise” with Moscow. But Zelensky’s comments weren’t as explicit as Sybiha’s.
Sybiha did not rule out the idea of Ukraine trying to take Crimea by force. “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army,” he said. But Ukraine’s Western backers doubt Ukraine has the ability to take the peninsula, and a full-blown attack could lead to a major escalation from Moscow.
Rear Admiral Tim Woods, the British defense attaché in Washington, told Financial Times that Crimea would need “a political solution because of just the concentration of force that is there and what it would mean for the Ukrainians to go in there.”
Besides the military aspect, the people of Crimea don’t want to be “liberated” by Kyiv, as polling has shown since Moscow absorbed the peninsula in 2014 that most Crimeans are happy they’re part of the Russian Federation.
Ukraine still has a long way to go before it would be close to Crimea’s border, and it’s not clear if its armed forces have the capability to beat back Russia. While the US is pushing for Kyiv to launch a counteroffensive, Zelensky said at the end of March it won’t be possible unless he receives even more support from the West.
Sounds like they are picking a fight and looking for a problem, implementing such maneuvers.
At one time or another, Ukraine has said just about everything about its position, including signing the Minsk 2 Accords and its recent near miss on a deal last March.
At this point, the bridge that has been burned is the ability of the US or its puppet to talk about anything with anybody.
Maybe the EU could make a deal with the help of China, if they are ready to abandon the US and force Ukraine, for which they’d need to show real guarantees of good faith.
Otherwise, there is no talking to NATO, or by NATO. It can only stand and die, now that it has so totally destroyed its own credibility.
Too bad. Making peace would be better. But someone who has done the Iran Deal and similar behavior just can’t talk peace anymore. Nobody of good sense could listen to them.
Crimea referendum is clear; the Russian speaking people there wished to be with mother Russia. It is a part of Russia. It is the only warm water port for Russian vessels. No way in h*ll will Russia allow it to be taken. End of story.
Soon enough, they’ll be accepting Russian terms of not occupy Kiev. Arrogant fools.
Why do you say something like that? Russia tried take Kiyv and failed miserably. They can’t even take Donbas a year + into this Steven Seagal like invasion.
Stick around for act 3. It’s going to be glorious.
Russia didn’t try to take Kiev. They used that maneuver to get Ukraine to the negotiating table. And it worked, before the west sabotaged the negotiations. And why should Russia be in any hurry to take Donbas when they are drawing the Ukrainian forces in and destroying them in mass? That’s Russia’s near term objective, to demilitarize Ukraine.
Tried to tie down entire regiments with limited probing operations, and then actually cracked the Ukrainian nut in the east, yeah, Ukraine is winning, Putin kidnaps babies, and the Russian air-force is dropping washing machines on civilian targets daily
Reports say that Putin is only using 20% of his military that means he has 80% in reserve , and with the Ukraine not having the infantry to hold any ground taken their counter offensive is doomed to fail .
ukraine seems to be fixated mostly on getting crimea back.
i wonder who keeps giving them that idea.
Zelensky has a villa there. It’s that profound.
Call me skeptical but I believe any successful counteroffensive will only embolden Ukraine to try to take Crimea.
Any attempt to do more than retake the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, with a ceasefire and return to “frozen” conflict, is likely to bring on a huge case of popular war fatigue in Ukraine, leading to replacement of the current regime — with such a replacement regime likely to be far less inclined to continue playing proxy war pawn for US/EU/NATO.
re fatigue: Victoria is standing in the wings and is ready for her next assignment 😉
Washington would be relieved to be able to try destabilizing someone else’s government, considering the human disaster they’ve managed to hatch with the one they destroyed in 2014.
Only problem is, we’re beginning to run out of worthwhile candidates, especially once the extent of the human misery we’ve sown in Ukraine gets past the MSM/US Government censors, and the somnambulistic American and European sheep get a glimpse of the detritus and that it extends well beyond the borders of Ukraine.
If Trump somehow manages to run, I believe he’ll morph into a champion of stable peaceful relations with Russia and China and global cooperation aimed at peace, prosperity, and justice for all!!! (and two chickens in every pot)