Since the large-scale Russian invasion began, Volodímir Zelenski He has appeared each and every day before his citizens. As a good actor – the profession he practiced before becoming president of Ukraine – his mastery of the screen, timing and scenery was clear from the first speech he gave.
There was not a single comma placed at random in that first video that went around the world on February 24, 2022where Zelensky spoke in Ukrainian and Russian, addressing Putin to ask him to stop. And although it did not serve to stop the invasion, it strengthened the image of the leader that the country needed at that time.
Since then, no other speech of his had crossed the borders of Ukraine as the one he gave last Friday afternoon did, where left the door open to capitulation to Russia. After 1,367 days of war –and coinciding with the anniversary of the Maidan revolution– the president seemed to prepare his citizens for a surrender.
In the video – with a gray image and shrouded in the fog of Kiev – Zelensky told the Ukrainians that it was time to choose between the 28-point Russian-American peace proposal – which includes give Putin the occupied territories and the entire gray area surrounding the combat front – or face the harshest winter of their lives.
“Well May it be the hardest winter of our lives then“, responds without hesitation a combatant from the Third Army Corps, who fights on the Lyman front. From the other side of the cell phone, he insists that “If Zelensky accepts Russia’s plan, we will go to a civil war; “The generals are going to jump on him.”
Crossed by corruption
Some of the people questioned, and also hundreds of Ukrainians who left comments on the video of the speech – which was published on Zelensky’s Instagram profile – alluded to the internal political crisis that Ukraine is going through right now, following a serious case of corruption that was uncovered a few weeks ago.
Since the full-scale war began, this is the most complicated moment that Zelensky’s government is going through –since the ringleader of the corruption plot, Andrii Yermak, is a personal friend and associate of the president–. And everything indicates that Donald Trump has taken advantage of this moment of political weakness to pressure with a crazy peace plan, which a few months ago would have been directly discarded.
At the moment Zelensky, who although he has opened the door to signing the agreement, has been quite ambiguous about the final decisiononly announces that he is going to work in the diplomatic field to improve the conditions of the proposal and to include Europe in the negotiations.
Ukrainian soldiers from the 68 Brigade prepare FPV attack drones for a mission from their combat position, inside Pokrovsk.
“The government of The United States is only favoring the Russians and dividing Ukraine in two. I hope that Europe approaches this issue with a little more sensibility,” denounces a soldier from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade. Zaporogos Negros.
“We must thank all the countries that support us and will continue to do so, but I also want to say ‘get ready’, because This may be just the beginning of the whole global disaster what awaits us. There will never again be peace like the one there was before,” asserts the fighter from the 72nd Brigade.
Russia advances on the battlefield
The situation on the combat front is also not favorable for Ukraine at the moment: Russia is advancing on almost all fronts, except for Kupyansk (Kharkiv), where Zelensky’s brigades would be pushing back Moscow’s troops.
But in the rest of the line of contact the Russian Army has a significant numerical advantage, both in soldiers, drones and ammunition. And he is putting reinforcements on the front Donetskfrom Lyman a Pokrovskpassing through the Kostyantynivka-Toretsk axis.
The soldiers who are fighting there – where the cold and the rain and the mud have complicated the fighting in recent weeks – seem to be more disconnected from international news than the rest. “We are doing our job on the front, We cannot be distracted by political issues.“says an officer of the First Azov Corps, which fights in Donetsk.
Wounded Ukrainian soldiers on the Pokrovsk front, inside a military hospital in the region.
But those who have just left their positions find themselves faced with the news. “Like all my colleagues, I think that We must continue fighting for all the lives that have fallen. They are going to continue fighting and so will I,” says a non-commissioned officer in the Ukrainian special forces who has just left the city of Pokrovsk, where they are fighting in gritty urban hand-to-hand combat.
“If the occupied territories in Ukraine are handed over, all those who have fallen would have died in vain. At this point there are no options but to continue fighting,” he insists, but also recognizes that they need more men and more resources to support the front line at this time.
A small army
“I do not consider that the conditions of the 28 point plan are acceptable to our country. “No one has the right to tell us how many soldiers we should have and no one can guarantee our security, except our Army,” says the soldier from the 72nd Brigade, agreeing with the majority of the testimonies collected.
“None of these agreements are valid under current conditions, and NATO cannot guarantee anything because it has proven that it is not effective“When Russia has violated the airspace of the countries of the Atlantic Alliance with its drones, they have done nothing,” he says. “They are an example of impotence, and I believe that trying to appease the aggressor will not lead to anything good in the future,” he adds.
The indignation of Ukrainians – which has been growing on the street since Friday – has also permeated the military. More than 90% of the men and women who today wear the uniform of the Ukrainian Army were not soldiers before 2022. Lawyers, bank clerks, bakers, university students… the list of professions is endless; and the way the Russian invasion changed their lives is very difficult to understand.
That is why many of those interviewed expect understanding from their own government, and refuse to accept a possible capitulation: “I I think Volodymir will not hand us overbecause we have given many lives, time and resources to continue fighting. Think about the mothers who lost their sons, the women who lost their men… People won’t understand,” reflects a member of the Land Forces from the kyiv Oblast.
“And the military who now, for the most part, They continue fighting for revenge for their fallen comrades They won’t understand it either,” he insists. “Capitulating will be worse than continuing to fight. It’s a shitty option, you don’t even have to think about it. We must continue doing everything possible. “Each one of us has to do everything we can.”
This young man, originally from the kyiv region, believes that accepting an unjust peace will generate chaos within the country and also refers to the possibility of a civil war: “there are many people with weapons, imagine that now they are all told that they have to surrender… Nobody trusts the guarantees of Russia or the United States. Guarantees are weapons”.
And another worrying point in the peace plan is the imposition of reducing the size of the Ukrainian Army to a maximum of 600,000 troops – approximately 60% of its current size. Along with banning long-range weapons and preventing Ukraine from developing nuclear weapons, this would limit the country’s ability to defend itself in the event of new Russian aggression.
There will be no lasting peace
“In the end, paper is worth writing on, paper holds everything. On paper you can write and promise anything, but the reality is different,” adds this young man from the Land Forces from kyiv.
“There will be no capitulationthat’s my opinion. Our government will not be able to accept those conditions: both the prime minister and the president have repeated that Ukraine will not sign any plan unacceptable to our country, and for now I trust the government. This will not happen.”
Distrust towards Russia – all Ukrainians are aware of what happened in Chechnya – added to the blood spilled in these almost four years of war are the main arguments in which the soldiers who have contributed their testimony agree, on condition of not revealing their names.
A wounded Ukrainian soldier in Pokrovsk is treated at the medical stabilization point of the 14th National Guard Brigade.
Among them there are also foreigners who fight on the side of Ukraine in this war, and who have also spoken out upon learning that President Zelensky has opened the door to a possible surrender. “Us We will continue fighting for the freedom of this country“We don’t want to give up even one centimeter of Ukraine,” says a Colombian fighter who serves with the Territorial Defense on the Zaporizhia front. “Many Colombians have also fallen here.”
“We are tired, very tired, but I don’t want to give up. Too many people have died to accept those conditions; and I don’t want my son to have to go to war in 10 or 15 years, because the war, if it doesn’t end in Ukraine with a victory, will continue in Europe,” concludes the non-commissioned officer who has just left the city of Pokrovsk, and whose wife and son are living in Spain.