The Ukraine will lose without “urgent help” from the West, Polish President Andrzej Duda says, while Kiev regime mouthpieces begin to float the idea of a Korean-style split of the Ukraine, something that Moscow will not allow, a small Nazi-state on its borders to continue to pester it in the future is out of question for Kremlin, former President Medvedev said.
Russia may win conflict in Ukraine if Kiev isn’t supplied with Western weapons in the coming weeks, Polish President Andrzej Duda has said
During an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro on Saturday, Duda was asked if he thought the Russians could achieve victory in Ukraine.
“Yes, they can, if Ukraine doesn’t receive help very urgently,” the Polish leader replied.
The Kiev authorities “don’t have modern military infrastructure, but they have people,” he explained.
“If we do not send military equipment to Ukraine in the coming weeks, [Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin may win. He can win and we don’t know where he’ll stop,” Duda warned.
His comments didn’t go unnoticed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who took to Telegram on Saturday to point out that even if Western weapons are supplied to Ukraine hurriedly – they won’t be able to change the outcome of the conflict.
The Kiev government and its foreign backers are “condemned” to defeat, she insisted, adding that the arms deliveries “won’t help you. They’ll only make things worse.”
“Repentance for what they have done is the only way out for the West,” Zakharova wrote.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that NATO members, who in January promised to send dozens of main battle tanks to Ukraine, have developed “sudden misgivings” about fulfilling the pledge due, apparently, to not having enough armor to spare.
Germany said that 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks will arrive in Ukraine in late March. Berlin also announced that it was buying up almost 190 decommissioned Leopard 1s to be refurbished and sent to the front.
Poland, which has been one of the biggest backers of Ukraine among EU states, vowed to provide its neighbor with 14 Leopard 2s and 60 of its modified Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
However, such countries as the Netherlands and Denmark, which had been pressuring Germany to send its armor to Ukraine, are now claiming that they themselves can’t part with any of their Leopard 2s. Finland said it may only supply “a few” tanks, but most likely only after it joins NATO.
Western countries have also ruled out delivering F-16 fighter jets, a new demand made by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
On Thursday, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, Igor Zhovkva, complained to Bloomberg that the Kiev forces had “like almost zero ammunition” left due to the high intensity of fighting with the Russians in the Donbass area, RT reports.
Kiev inching closer to conceding defeat – ex-Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev cited talks about a ‘Korean scenario’ in Ukraine as evidence of a growing acceptance of “reality”. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Kiev is moving towards accepting territorial losses
Discussions of a “Korean scenario” in Ukraine are a sign that Kiev is on the way to recognizing the reality on the ground and accepting its losses, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. The idea of a Korean-style division of Ukraine has been discussed by current and former officials in Kiev, who claim that this is what Russia is pursuing.
The idea that Ukraine could be divided up the way Korea was after the war in the 1950s is “for domestic consumption” and constitutes “wishful thinking,” Medvedev added, citing unnamed “propagandists” as peddling the notion.
What is notable is that “they coyly tested the statement that there can be no victory” and that “being split is the best-case scenario,” the former president said. The ‘Korean scenario’ means that a smaller, US-backed Ukraine could eventually develop to the level of South Korea while maintaining its claims over lost territories, Medvedev explained.
“In essence, this is the first step towards accepting the realities on the ground,” he said.
Korea was split into two parts after a three-year civil war, in which the opposing factions in the north and south were backed by the USSR and China, and the US respectively. Both Pyongyang and Seoul claim sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula, and each considers the other government to be unlawful.
Unlike South Korea, Donbass voted in a referendum to become part of Russia rather than forming a sovereign state, Medvedev said, arguing that a ‘Korean scenario’ is not feasible for Ukraine. The former president currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council.
The idea was floated to the Ukrainian public last month by Medvedev’s counterpart in Kiev, Aleksey Danilov, who claimed that Russia is lobbying EU nations to accept a Korean-style split of his nation, and stated that Kiev would reject it. The Kremlin dismissed the report as a “hoax.”
This week, the Korean scenario was also brought up by Aleksey Arestovich, the former aide to the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Speaking at an expert panel discussion on Monday, he stated that Ukraine does not have enough manpower to beat Russia on the battlefield anytime soon, and claimed that a Korean scenario may become an acceptable off-ramp for the parties involved.
Like Danilov before him, Arestovich claimed that Russia is seeking this type of outcome, while noting that the Western nations which Kiev depends upon “think the same way.”