Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
How? Ukraine’s made like a few square kilometers of progress with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding while Russia has just fallen back from their low ground territorial gains to the more easily defensible high ground.
What leverage does Ukraine even have for those demands?
The reason for those small gains instead of hard ones is largely air support. The fighting on the ground is very reminiscent of world war I. That is not a good thing. They may seem like modest gains but in terms of that type of warfare they are pretty huge gains. The problem is that without air support it is going to be a long hard battle.
All that said, it is Ukraine’s territory. Russia could pack up and leave at any time.
How is Ukraine ever going to get air superiority? The West is basically trickle-feeding then equipment.
Yes, that is exactly what I implied.