Ukraine expressed frustration with its ongoing peace talks with Russia and the United States this week, saying US pressure was too one-sided against it.
“As of today, we cannot say that the outcome is sufficient,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainians in a Wednesday evening video address.
Before Wednesday’s talks in Geneva had begun, Zelenskyy told Axios news service that ceding the remaining one-fifth of the eastern Donetsk region that Russia doesn’t control, as Moscow has demanded, would not be accepted by Ukrainians.
“Emotionally, people will never forgive this. Never. They will not forgive … me, they will not forgive [the US],” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukrainians “can’t understand why” they would be asked to give up additional land.
Russia currently controls about 19 percent of Ukraine, down from 26 percent in March 2022.
Last month, 54 percent of surveyed Ukrainians told the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology they categorically reject transferring the whole of the Donetsk region to Russian control, even in return for strong security guarantees, with only 39 percent accepting the proposal.
Two-thirds of respondents also said they did not believe the current US-sponsored peace negotiations would lead to lasting peace.
Instead of ceding land now, Zelenskyy favours freezing the current line of contact as a pretext for a ceasefire and territorial negotiations.
“I think that if we will put in the document … that we stay where we stay on the contact line, I think that people will support this [in a] referendum. That is my opinion,” he told Axios.
Blaming Ukraine
US President Donald Trump told Reuters last month that Ukraine, not Russia, was holding up a peace deal.
But Zelenskyy said it was “not fair” that Trump was putting public pressure on Ukraine to accept Russian terms, adding, “I hope it is just his tactics.”
US senators visiting Odesa last week agreed with him, saying they want their government to put more pressure on Russia.
“Nobody, literally nobody, believes that Russia is acting in good faith in the negotiations with our government and with the Ukrainians. And so pressure becomes the key,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
Russia unleashed a barrage of 396 attack drones and 29 missiles on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on the day of the Geneva talks, its second large-scale blow in six days. On February 12, another attack had left 100,000 families without electricity, and 3,500 apartment buildings without heat in Kyiv alone.
“Russia greets with a strike even the very day new formats begin in Geneva – trilateral and bilateral with the United States,” said Zelenskyy in a video address. “This very clearly shows what Russia wants and what it is truly intent on.”
Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked Western allies to stop Russian energy sales that circumvent sanctions, and to stop exporting components to third countries, which re-export them to Russia’s armaments industry.
Russia is believed to be using a shadow fleet estimated at between 400 and 1,000 oil tankers to carry and sell its crude oil. France has seized two of those tankers, and the US seized a second tanker on Monday.
The US Senate has held off voting on a sanctions bill that has 85 percent support because of opposition from Trump. The bill would impose secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil – notably India and China.
Can Russia take Donetsk anyway?
Russia has fought since 2014 to seize the two eastern regions of Ukraine, which triggered its invasion – Luhansk and Donetsk – where it claimed a Russian-speaking population was being persecuted by the government in Kyiv.
Late last year, Russia managed to seize all of Luhansk, but analysts believe it is