After 13 days from the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opens a window to the Russians: "I am available for a dialogue, but not for a capitulation". Regarding Moscow's requests to recognize the Crimea such as Russian and the Donbass independent, "we can discuss and find a compromise", even if he specified that these are "temporarily occupied territories and republics not recognized by anyone". And that above all it is a "more complicated matter than just recognizing, this is another ultimatum and we are not ready for an ultimatum", said the Ukrainian leader during an interview with the American network AbcNews, adding however the will to the dialogue and that Putin needs to start doing it instead “of living in an information bubble without oxygen. I think that's where he's at."
While the drama of the humanitarian corridors unfolds, the US and the UK hit Moscow with new sanctions, Zelensky would be ready to start negotiations on the status of Crimea and Donbass even if "it will not accept Moscow's request to recognize the independence, or the annexation of the Peninsula on the Black Sea to Russia".
So far the government in Kiev had not made any explicit opening in this regard, consequently the negotiations had stalled in a dead end mainly due to the closure and the continuous bombings by the Russians. However, Zelensky's openness is not unconditional and probably as long as European support continues to translate into heavy sanctions, arms shipments to Ukraine and humanitarian aid to its fleeing population, Ukraine will be able to resist the war but not win it alone . Now that the possible entry of the country into the European Union has waned, Zelensky's about-face is understandable. But the real problem that is emerging is another: Ukraine runs the risk of becoming a new Afghanistan for Russia and that is, of being the scene of a war that is much longer than expected but which Russia, tried on an economic level, cannot withstand for too much time.
Ukraine's entry into NATO fades, Zelensky "I got cold"
Again in the interview with ABC, the Ukrainian president added: “I've gotten cold for some time” regarding Ukraine's entry into NATO, since “we understood that NATO is not ready to accept us. The alliance fears contradictions and confrontation with Russia. We will not be a country that asks on its knees, we are not that country and I don't want to be that president."
Claims that tie into another Russian request: the neutrality of Ukraine. On paper, how willing is the Kiev government to discuss with Russia? Shortly before these statements, the Ukrainian leader had declared that the war between Russia and Ukraine is only at the beginning of an escalation because Moscow "will not be satisfied" because "the more the beast eats, the more it wants to eat". “This conflict will not end like this but it will trigger a world war. Today the war is here, tomorrow it will be in Lithuania, then in Poland, then in Germany”. The Russian president “can end a war he started. And if he doesn't think he started it all, he needs to know that he can end the war."
Zelensky to the British Parliament: "We will fight like you against the Nazis"
"We do not want to lose what is ours just as you once did not want to surrender in the face of the Nazi invasion" - These are the words of the Ukrainian president to the British deputies who welcomed him with a standing ovation. Then the condemnation of NATO that "did not behave as it should in his response after the Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhya plant", as well as "in not imposing a no fly-zone over the skies of Ukraine". The president then indulged in a Shakespearean quotation: “To be or not to be? We answer to be, we answer that we want to exist”.
"We did not want this war," Zelensky underlined, stating that "we are fighting with one of the strongest armies in the world", but "we have been able to react" by always "remaining human" and "not torturing our enemies". Which cannot be said for the Russian army, which has killed "at least 50 children in this war".
