Despite Western skepticism: Zelenskyy sticks to Ukraine war goal - "Everyone is confused in this situation"
Created: 11/25/2022, 5:00 am
By: Patrick Mayer, Stephanie Munk
Looking at Vladimir Putin: Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel defends her Russia policy.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirms Ukraine's goal.
The news ticker for the negotiations.
Patriot
air defense system
for
Ukraine
?
Lambrecht wants to talk to NATO after Poland's proposal.
Merkel
defends
Russia policy
: Ex-Chancellor speaks of Putin's last effort.
Russia
distributes
passports in Ukraine
: More than 80,000 passports have been distributed to Ukrainians.
This
news ticker on international reactions to the Ukraine war
is constantly updated.
Update from November 24, 8:40 p.m
.: Despite Western skepticism, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is sticking to the liberation of the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, as a war goal.
He told the British newspaper
Financial Times
.
"I can understand that everyone is confused about this situation and what will become of Crimea," he was quoted as saying.
"If someone shows us a way to end the occupation of Crimea by non-military means, then I will be very much in favor of it," Zelenskyi told the newspaper.
But if a proposal meant that Crimea would be occupied and remain part of Russia, "no one should waste their time on that.
That's a waste of time."
Ukraine-News: Zelenskyy holds on to the end of Russia's occupation of Crimea
Western supporters of Ukraine assume that Ukraine will eventually be able to recapture the areas occupied by Russia since February 24 and the Donbass.
But they are more cautious about Crimea: The peninsula is strategically and symbolically so important for Moscow that there is a risk of an escalation of the war.
During negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in the spring, at the beginning of the war, there was talk of postponing the question of Crimea's membership for a few years.
Strengthened by their military successes, however, the Kiev leadership is now pursuing the goal of recapturing all detached areas of Ukraine.
In the past few months, skepticism has repeatedly been heard from NATO and Western countries as to whether a reconquest of Crimea is really a possibility.
President of Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyj (centre), here after the liberation of Cherson.
© IMAGO/Ukraine Presidency
Patriot air defense system for Ukraine?
Lambrecht wants to talk to NATO after Poland's proposal
Update from November 24, 6:10 p.m
.: According to Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD), the proposal by the Polish Defense Minister to prefer to deliver the Patriot air defense system offered to his country by Germany to Ukraine “must be discussed with NATO”.
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"It was important to us as a NATO partner due to Poland's exposed position (...) to offer Poland support in this special situation - with air policing, but also with patriots," said Lambrecht this Thursday in Berlin with a view to the Rocket impact in the Polish border area with Ukraine in mid-November.
These are Patriot systems that are planned into NATO's integrated air defense system, which is why it was possible to make this proposal to Poland, Lambrecht said.
"Proposals that deviate from this must now be discussed with NATO, with our allies," added the minister.
After the rocket hit, the German government offered to support NATO partner Poland with the Patriot missile defense system earlier this week.
According to NATO and Poland, the impact was probably caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.
A combat-ready "Patriot" type anti-aircraft missile system of the Bundeswehr's 1st anti-aircraft missile squadron.
(symbol photo) © Axel Heimken/dpa
In an initial reaction, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak was pleased with the offer and suggested stationing the defense system on the border with Ukraine.
On Wednesday evening, he tweeted that he had "asked the German side to transfer the Patriot battery offered to Poland to Ukraine and deploy it on the western border."
The Patriot system is used to defend against aircraft, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
It is based on the interaction of several radar devices that pass on information about approaching missiles to guided missiles;
these should then destroy the projectile in the air.
The feeling was very clear: 'In terms of power politics you're through.'
Only power counts for Putin.
Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU)
Merkel defends Russia policy: Ex-Chancellor speaks of Putin's last effort
Update from November 24, 3:25 p.m
.: Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has defended her policy towards Russia and Ukraine.
The Russian attack did not come as a surprise, Merkel told
Der Spiegel:
"The Minsk agreement was undermined."
In the summer of 2021, she and French President Emmanuel Macron wanted to create “an independent European discussion format” with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
"But I no longer had the strength to assert myself because everyone knew: It will be gone in the fall."
Merkel officially left office in December 2021.
The previous August, she had traveled to Moscow for a farewell visit to see Putin.
"The feeling was very clear: 'In terms of power politics, you're through.'" Merkel told
Der Spiegel
.
"Only power counts for Putin."
Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel (archive image) © Markus Schreiber/AFP
Russia distributes passports in Ukraine - more than 80 thousand
Update from November 24, 2:24 p.m
.: According to its own statements, Russia has issued more than 80,000 Russian passports to residents of the Ukrainian regions that have been declared annexed.
"Since the four regions of the Russian Federation were added, and in accordance with the law, more than 80,000 people have received passports as citizens of the Russian Federation," Russian news agencies quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying.
The UN in September condemned the "attempted illegal annexation" of Ukrainian land and called on the international community "not to recognize any border changes announced by Russia".
Even before its war of aggression, Moscow had distributed hundreds of thousands of Russian passports in the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine.
Update from November 24, 12:42 p.m .:
Homosexuals and transgender people have been oppressed in Russia for years.
Now the Russian lower house has spoken out in favor of tightening the law against "LGBTQ propaganda".
"Any promotion of non-traditional sexual relations will have consequences," Vyacheslav Volodin, the leader of the Lower House, told Telegram.
The English abbreviation LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
The legislation "will protect our children and the future of this country from the darkness being spread by the US and European states."
Anyone who violates the law should have to pay a fine of up to ten million rubles (about 160,000 euros).
It still has to be approved by the House of Lords and Putin, but this is considered a formality.
The law will apply to the media, literature, cinema and advertising.
According to the Duma, websites with prohibited information will be blocked.
Against the background of the Ukraine war, it is also presented as a means of defending Russian values against Western countries.
Meanwhile, LGBTQ activists have called on Russia not to pass the law, which bans any public mention of sexual minorities.
Russian film production companies and book publishers have also expressed concern about the law.
They say it could lead to the banning of Russian classics such as Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita.
Ukraine-News: Putin veils his intentions in Ukraine
Moscow - Russia no longer wants the violent elimination of the Ukrainian government in Ukraine - this was stated by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday, November 23, claiming that he had "talked about it" with Putin.
Shortly before that, the deputy spokesman of the Council of the Russian Federation, Konstantin Kosachev, claimed the exact opposite: he demanded the complete capitulation of the Zelenskyi government.
The US think tank "Institute for the Study of War" believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is driving this confusion in the Ukraine war out of calculation - he deliberately wants to leave the world in the dark.
This should unsettle the West in its support for Ukraine.
"The Kremlin wants to induce Western countries to put pressure on Ukraine to enter into peace negotiations," according to an analysis by the institute on Wednesday (November 23).
What is Putin planning?
The Kremlin has made different statements about the Ukraine war.
© Imago/Russian Foreign Ministry
Pro-war community reacts with uncertainty - "War without a clear goal"
According to the experts, the fact that Putin is currently not speaking plain language is creating great uncertainty in Russia.
"The contradicting statements confused the pro-war community." Example: After Peskov's statement that they no longer want regime change, a well-known Russian military blogger sarcastically remarked "that Russia is waging a war aimlessly without a clear goal."
Putin's propaganda staff on Russian state television is also said to be unsettled by the Kremlin's ambiguous statements.
Recently there was a remarkable incident in a Russian political talk show: moderator and hardliner Vladimir Solovyov called for the use of nuclear weapons in Cherson in the show, but several invited experts vehemently contradicted him.
The political and military experts emphasized that using nuclear weapons to defend areas that are not fully occupied is irrational - and even argued that NATO poses no threat to Russia.
"Such a rejection of common Kremlin points in such a forum is unprecedented," write the ISW analysts.
Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures
View photo gallery
Ukraine-News: Putin is probably still planning the collapse of the system in Ukraine
With his cat-and-mouse game, Putin wants to keep several groups in line: the extreme supporters of war, the more moderate forces, and also his people.
The Ukraine war is making more and more demands on this - whether it's the loss of men, sons and brothers at the front, or the country's threatened economic collapse as a result of Western sanctions.
The experts believe that in reality Putin has not backed down from his original intentions of completely subjugating Ukraine: this was shown by a speech to Russian academics at the end of October, in which the Russian President continued to deny Ukraine any sovereignty and demanded full " denazification” of the country.
"Putin's demands amount to a regime change in Kyiv, even if he does not expressly call for this in his most recent statements," the ISW experts conclude.
(smu)