On Monday, 21 March, AP reported that “Zelenskyy said that Kyiv will be ready to discuss the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region held by Russian-backed separatists after a cease-fire and steps toward providing security guarantees.” This milestone is the very first time that Zelensky has said that there might be circumstances under which “the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region held by Russian-backed separatists” could even possibly be negotiated by Ukraine’s government. All Ukrainian-government leaders, after U.S. President Barack Obama perpetrated in Ukraine a violent coup which overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President and installed a U.S.-controlled rabidly anti-Russian government in Ukraine in February 2014, have said that Ukraine will never consider the status of those two former regions of Ukraine to be negotiable.

So: Zelensky is now saying that “after a cease-fire and steps toward providing security guarantees,” Zelensky would negotiate “the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region held by Russian-backed separatists.” This is the first major change-in-position by EITHER side in the present conflict, and the fact that it is being made by Ukraine is indisputable proof that militarily Russia is winning the war.

In other words: after a “cease-fire,” Ukraine would be in the weaker position, and, in that position, would then find itself obligated (by what Zelensky has just now said on this matter) to negotiate its acceptance that neither of those two regions is any longer a part of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine’s government would then be demanding from Russia’s Government “security guarantees.” Ukraine’s government would be requiring these “security guarantees” no longer from the U.S. Government (NATO), but instead from Russia’s Government.

Russia’s Government had invaded Ukraine on February 24th for two reasons: (1) to permanently block Ukrainian membership for Ukraine in the anti-Russian military alliance NATO; and, (2) to “denazify” Ukraine. The current breakthrough (“Zelenskyy said that Kyiv will be ready to discuss the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region held by Russian-backed separatists after a cease-fire and steps toward providing security guarantees”) opens the door to achieving (1); however, the deeper, and continuing deadlock is (2) denazification of Ukraine. In my news-report on March 21, “Why The Question Of Which Side Is ‘nazi’ Blocks Any Peace Settlement”, was explained WHY that issue is so extremely unlikely to be able to be agreed-upon between Zelensky and Putin — and, therefore, why Russia will either have to accept defeat in this war, or else defeat Ukraine 100% militarily before there will be any capitulation by Ukraine in this conflict.

Since we now know that Russia is, at present, winning the war, the ONLY possibility by which Ukraine will be able to impose capitulation on Russia is by reversing the current military reality.

In any case, however, this is an extremely interesting situation. If Russia wins this conflict, then the post-World-War-II domination of the world by the United States will have definitively ended. However, if Ukraine wins it, then Russia will have to accept that, ultimately, it will become conquered by the U.S., and that the only agency remaining for Russia’s Government will be to decide whether that defeat will come by a peaceful capitulation, or, instead, by a world-annihilating WW III.