Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration signaled a new willingness to compromise on the future of the Crimean peninsula.
Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of the presidential office, told the Financial Times this week that Ukraine would be open to peace talks if its counteroffensive goes according to plan.
“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said.
At the same time, Sybiha did not discount the possibility of liberating the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula by force.
Ukraine has reported heavy casualties in the east where the bloody battle for the strategic city of Bakhmut continues to wage in this seven-month-long stalemate characterized by relentless artillery fire, as The Dallas Express has reported.
But recent reports from British intelligence suggest that Russian forces have made a critical gain.
As of April 7, Russia might be in control of central Bakhmut, and this puts the supply route to Ukrainian forces to the west in serious jeopardy, per Reuters.
Speaking at an interview with the Associated Press on April 5, Zelenskyy expressed his concerns that losing Bakhmut would embolden Moscow and would turn up external political pressure to give up Ukrainian territory.
“Our society will feel tired,” Zelenskyy explained to AP News. “Our society will push me to have compromise with them.”
While some military analysts have suggested that Bakhmut isn’t actually very important to the Ukrainian cause, it would definitely represent a setback both politically and in terms of morale.
It is perhaps with this in mind that Zelenskyy’s administration seems to be shifting from its earlier goal of recovering every inch of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
Last year, Kyiv broke off peace talks and had been firmly against opening them up again after allegations of Russian war crimes committed in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha emerged, as The Dallas Express reported.
Rear Admiral Tim Woods, who serves as the British defense attaché in Washington, said that Russia’s current hold over Crimea would require significant military force from Ukraine to bust through, per the Financial Times.
With a “quick military solution” most likely out of the question, Woods suggested that “a political solution” is needed.
Kyiv’s current military goals are to make gains to the south and sever a land bridge that acts as a supply line to Russian forces.
One of Zelenskyy’s advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, told Radio Free Europe on April 5 that Ukrainian forces would be in Crimea within “five to seven months,” per the Financial Times.
It is also yet to be seen how responsive Moscow would be to negotiate with Ukraine and release other territories — including Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk — that Moscow claimed as part of the Russian Federation in the accession treaties signed by Putin last September.