The peace proposal, a year after the war. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is working on a 10-point plan to end the conflict which has been devastating Ukraine for over 300 days now. With the intention – according to the Wall Street Journal, which quotes EU and Ukrainian diplomats – to present it around February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion and the time when the arrival of a new Russian in Ukraine is most feared becomes offensive on a grand scale
Until then, Kiev’s idea was to maximize territorial reconquests with “as many victories as possible” in order to then come out stronger at every negotiating table. According to the American newspaper, the Ukrainian head of state already discussed this with Biden during his visit to Washington. AND “We also talked about” the Kiev peace plan with G7 partners, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “All I can tell you is that we are considering what he proposed,” added Zelenskyy, the head of US diplomacy, adding that the Kiev formula is “a good start,” but without specifying how long the US and the Ukraine for this will need to plan together plan.
As much as we can talk about peace, in order to achieve it, there must be the will of both sides. AND from the Kremlin they hastened to say that they do not know that there are peace plans on the Ukrainian sidebecause Kyiv “does not take into account the current reality”. While the Zelenskyi-Biden meeting further sealed an alliance that is vital for Ukraine, it also fueled tensions between the US and Moscow, with the Russian Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, taking the Ukrainian President’s visit as a signal that the USA and Ukraine “are not ready for peace”, as he defined here “Probably a clash between Russia and the United States”.
With the conflict now even poised to cross the gates of 2023 Vladimir Putin used the word “war” for the first time speak about the military offensive in Thursday’s press conference. A detail that has not gone unnoticed and has also triggered reactions in Russia. So much so that a deputy from the St. Petersburg City Council, Nikita Yuferev, has requested that a case be opened against the tsar, whose words “can be held legally responsible for spreading untruths about the actions of the Russian army”.
Words aside, spokesman Peskov said the Russian president is preparing for a war in action, convinced of “significant progress towards demilitarization” of Ukraine. The tsar has ordered the heads of the arms industry to ensure that the Russian army receives all weapons and equipment for fighting in Ukraine “in the shortest possible time”. While the Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko will arrive in Russia on Saturday after Putin’s recent visit to Minsk. Moscow is then preparing revenge against Europe’s gas price cap, while Russian Energy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has announced his intention to divert gas supplies from Europe to other regions of the world, although the European market remains “relevant”. .
Meanwhile, bombs continue to fall across Ukraine, with Ukrainian authorities reporting attacks on Kharkiv and Kherson that left two civilians dead and a kindergarten damaged in an attack by the invaders. Kyiv has experienced “huge” power shortages of up to 50% of needs, with the Ukrainian capital hit by emergency blackouts. On the other side of the front, pro-Russians denounced the explosion of a car bomb by the “Kyiv terrorists” in Melitopol, which injured two. On Thursday, however, former Deputy Prime Minister and Director General of the Russian space agency Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, along with the governor of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Vitaly Khotsenko, were injured in a shelling by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk.