The Ukrainian leader is showing “absolute helplessness,” Oleg Soskin has said
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov should quit their posts due to the setbacks suffered by the country in the conflict with Russia, Oleg Soskin, who served as an aide to two Ukrainian heads of state, has said.
Ukraine needs new leadership that will be able to save the country, Soskin insisted in a clip published on his YouTube channel on Friday.
“Umerov should resign as minister of defense. These are his actions; it’s him who said that they would take Crimea and that sort of thing. Zelensky should also resign because he’s showing absolute helplessness. He turned out to be completely helpless,” he stated.
The former presidential aide pointed to the fact that the Ukrainian military said that it had shot down 27 drones and 87 cruise missiles out of the 158 projectiles fired by Russia during its large-scale air attack on Thursday and Friday. Kiev had previously claimed to have a much higher rate of interception of Russian projectiles.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow insisted that all intended targets, including defense industry sites, military airfields, arms depots, and positions of Ukrainian troops, were successfully hit.
“Since you can’t resist [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, since there’s no money, no weapons, no nothing, no people then you must negotiate, sign a ceasefire agreement [with Russia], but without recognizing the loss of the territories,” Soskin, who served as an aide to Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kravchuk in 1992 and 1993, and Leonid Kuchma between 1998 and 2000, said.
After that, an election should be held in order “to find those who will be more successful” in running the country, he said. “Ukraine will soon cease to exist” if the likes of Zelensky and his associates remain in power, the former aide warned.
Zelensky announced in late November that Kiev’s forces would switch from attacking to building fortifications, acknowledging that the counteroffensive, which began in early June and aimed to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, had ended without success. According to Russian estimates, Ukraine lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment in its failed attempts to advance.
The flow of Western aid to Kiev has also subsided sharply in recent months. In the US, Republican lawmakers are resisting attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push through another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev, while Hungary has vetoed the EU’s planned four-year €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine.
Ukrainian ‘regime’ must be removed – Medvedev
The removal of the Western-backed government of Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has said.
On Thursday, Medvedev, who now holds the position of deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, was asked by RIA-Novosti about the prospects of peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in 2024.
The Russian military operation in Ukraine will continue next year with its goals remaining unchanged, he replied.
According to the former president, those goals include “the disarmament of Ukrainian troops and the rejection of the ideology of neo-Nazism by the current Ukrainian state.”
“The removal of the ruling Banderovite regime isn’t being openly declared, but it’s the most important and inevitable goal that must and will be achieved,” he said, referring to the Zelensky government.
‘Banderovite’ relates to Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and is now revered as a hero by authorities in Kiev.
“Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kiev, they are Russian cities, like many others under temporary occupation [by Ukraine]. All of them are marked in yellow and blue on paper maps and electronic tablets, for now,” Medvedev said.
About talks, they are “of course, possible,” he acknowledged, adding that “Russia never rejected them, unlike the insane Ukrainian authorities.” The former president stressed, however, that Moscow has no deadline for any negotiations and that these may proceed all the way until “the complete defeat and capitulation” of the NATO-backed Ukrainian forces.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the authorities in Moscow “identify a lack of drive for peace on the part of the Zelensky regime. His representatives think in terms of war and use very aggressive rhetoric.”
The US and the EU remain committed to “containing Russia with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians” and realize that without aid from these sources the Kiev government “is doomed,” the minister said.
He also recalled that, more than a year ago, Zelensky officially banned himself from negotiating with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Instead, the Ukrainian leader has been promoting his so-called ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war-crimes tribunal. Russian authorities instantly rejected the proposal as “unrealistic” and out-of-touch with the situation on the ground.