Putin has a habit of creating ‘frozen conflicts’ on Russia’s borders, not as ends in themselves but because his goal is to ‘restore the Soviet Union’, says Zelenskyy — ‘The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin.’
by marketrent
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*The Economist* spoke with Zelenskyy on the margins of a conference in Kyiv:^1
>In answer to Western complaints about the offensive’s slowness, Mr Zelensky says it reflects the extreme level of danger. Winning back territory needs to be balanced with preserving as many lives as possible.
>Soldiers need to reduce the risks: to carry out reconnaissance, to use drones, to avoid direct clashes.
>Ukraine would have lost “thousands” had it followed advice to commit many more troops, he says. This is not the sort of war where “the leader of a country says the price doesn’t matter.”
>That is the difference between him and Vladimir Putin. “For him, life is nothing.”
>
>Tapping loudly on the table, Mr Zelensky rejects outright the idea of compromise with Vladimir Putin.
>War will continue for “as long as Russia remains on Ukrainian territory”, he says.
>A negotiated deal would not be permanent. The Russian president has a habit of creating “frozen conflicts” on Russia’s borders (in Georgia, for example), not as ends in themselves but because his goal is to “restore the Soviet Union”.
>Those who choose to talk to the man in the Kremlin are “tricking themselves”, much like the Western leaders who signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 only to watch him invade Czechoslovakia.
>“The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin. He negotiates only with himself.”
^1 https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/10/this-is-a-bad-moment-for-diplomacy-our-interview-with-zelensky
>his goal is to ‘restore the Soviet Union’…
…when in actuality he is writing the final chapter of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union.