Posted on 05/22/22
| News Source: Washington Post
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the only way out of the war will be through diplomacy – in addition to a Kyiv win on the battlefield – as his chief negotiator ruled out the possibility of a cease-fire that would give Russia control of any captured Ukrainian territory.
“Victory will be bloody,” Zelensky said on Ukrainian television, and “the end will certainly be in diplomacy.”
Zelensky said the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine is facing an “extremely difficult” situation as Russian forces concentrate on the east after Kyiv gave up its defense of Mariupol and Moscow claimed total control of the port city. Russia is likely to have deployed its only operational company of BMP-T “Terminator” tank support vehicles to Severodonetsk, a key focus for its operations in Donbas, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. Severodonetsk is the easternmost city still in Ukrainian hands.
A delegation of U.S. diplomats is set to travel to The Hague on Sunday for talks with allies “regarding our responses to atrocities committed in Ukraine” and in other conflicts, and on efforts to “bring the perpetrators of atrocities to justice,” the State Department said in a news release. Ukrainian authorities have put three captured Russian soldiers on trial for war crimes, and the Biden administration is supporting steps by the Ukrainian prosecutor general to investigate Russia’s actions in the war.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, in the first in-person address by a foreign leader to Kyiv’s parliament since the war began, stressed Ukraine’s right to determine its own future.
President Joe Biden signed a $40 billion package of new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine on Saturday while visiting South Korea, amid signs that the United States and its allies are preparing for a drawn-out conflict. Zelensky called the aid package “a historic contribution to the protection of freedom in Europe.”
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, starts Sunday, with the theme “History at a Turning Point.” Zelensky will address the conference virtually this week.
Zelensky says an international agreement with security guarantees from countries other than Russia will be needed after fighting ends.
But, he told Ukrainian television in an interview broadcast Saturday, everything depends on the circumstances that end a “hybrid war” and lead to a “hybrid peace.”
Zelensky did not rule out talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he said the form of such talks would be determined by events.
“I think that a discussion between Ukraine and Russia will definitely happen. But we don’t know in what format,” he said.
Any security guarantees for a future peace must be based in reality and not on a piece of paper, he added.
Citing the fate of the Ukrainian fighters besieged for weeks by Russian forces at the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol, Zelensky noted: “I said during the bombardment that if they destroy the people in Azovstal, there will never be any discussions with Russia. Today we saw that they found a way to let these people live.”
“Time changes things,” he said. “There are various situations. It all depends on the time.”
Ukraine is planning to grant more rights to Polish citizens in the country in response to a similar decision from Warsaw, Zelensky said Sunday.
Speaking at the Ukrainian parliament during a visit by his Polish counterpart, he thanked Poland for a recently adopted law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens.
“This is an unprecedented decision, according to which our citizens, who have been forced to flee to Poland due to the Russian aggression, will be granted almost the same rights and opportunities as Polish citizens. Legal residence, employment, education, health care and social benefits,” Zelensky said, according to a text of the speech posted by an official from the presidential office.
The president said that he planned to submit a “mirror” bill offering the same rights to Polish citizens in Ukraine “in the near future.”
Duda, in his address to the Ukrainian parliament, said his country would do “everything it can to help Ukraine become a member of the European Union.”
Poland has received almost 3.5 million refugees from neighboring Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24.
Zelensky said increased military aid to Ukraine would help the country reopen its ports and ease pressure on worldwide food prices.
Ukraine closed the ports in late February, and Russian warships and floating mines have prevented them from reopening. The closures have halted the export of grain and other agricultural products. Zelensky said in a news conference Saturday that 22 million metric tons of food intended for export are stuck in the country.
“There will be a crisis in the world. The second crisis after the energy one, which was provoked by Russia. Now it will create a food crisis if we do not unblock the routes for Ukraine, do not help countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, which need these food products,” he said.
“You can unblock them in different ways. One of the ways is a military solution. So we turn to our partners with inquiries about the relevant weapons.”
Fighting in Ukraine has disrupted food production, with farmers unable to plant or harvest crops in some areas. Ukraine has also accused Russian forces of stealing grain and transporting it to Russia.
Last week, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed the importance of the issue: “We must not be naive. Russia has now expanded the war against Ukraine to many states as a war of grain.”
The mayor of Mariupol has warned that the Russian-occupied port city is “on the verge of an outbreak of infectious diseases” because of the war.
Many of the city’s residents have no access to water or functioning sewage systems, Vadym Boychenko said in a message posted Saturday on Telegram, while summer rains are likely to spread diseases from hastily dug shallow graves into water supplies.
He called for the establishment of humanitarian corridors to allow evacuations from the southeastern city, which had been home to more than 400,000 people before the war.
Russia on Friday claimed to have taken complete control of the Azovstal steel plant, the final stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Mariupol.