After almost a thousand days of fighting something is moving. The situation on the battlefield in Ukraine it is particularly delicate and for this reason diplomacy is trying to change gear. Yesterday, about two years after the last contact, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone. An hour-long dialogue which certainly represents a step forward, even if there remains a long way to go. The Berlin issue denounced the “Russian war of aggression” against Kiev, asking Putin to withdraw troops and negotiate for “a just and lasting peace”. Scholz also reiterated Germany’s “unshakeable determination to support Ukraine for as long as necessary.”
As anticipated, the distance remains wide. Putin reiterated that a possible agreement should reflect the “new territorial realities”, as well as “take into consideration the interests of the Russian Federation in the security sphere” and “eliminate the causes of the conflict”. The reference is to the alleged “long-standing aggressive policy of Born aimed at creating an anti-Russian foothold on Ukrainian territory, ignoring the security interests of our country and trampling on the rights of Russian-speaking residents.” Kiev didn’t like the chat about the Berlin-Moscow axis: he was warned of the contact in advance, Volodymyr Zelensky he talked about a phone call that opens a Pandora’s box. Kiev’s number one called for concrete and strong actions to force Putin to make peace, certainly not persuasion and attempts at appeasement which could be perceived by the Kremlin as weakness.
Returning to the battlefield, the situation is complex. The invasion of Kursk ordered by Zelensky by surprise, it did not have the desired effects, i.e. moving Russian troops to Donbass and transforming that territory into a bargaining chip during negotiations for the peace agreement. Moscow wants to recover the region and for this reason it has deployed North Korean soldiers, thus avoiding disengaging personnel from the front lines of Donetsk and Luhansk. Zelensky’s forces are in no obvious difficulty and there is great concern about the possible constant rain of fire by Russian forces. As recalled by Il Messaggero, the clarification of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was not accidental: “We must increase our support for Ukraine, including through air and missile defenses to protect critical infrastructures”.
A possible solution is the freezing of the conflictwith a front line immobilized with a buffer zone hundreds of thousands of kilometers long. At the same time, the acceleration on the negotiated. Zelensky may have to deal with the demand to consider both Crimea and Donbass lost. There is no shortage of candidates for mediation: from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, passing through the United Arab Emirates, many actors have made themselves available for the agreement as has already happened for prisoners of war and wheat. Now it’s a race against time, with the aim of achieving as many goals as possible before the new phase.
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