The Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said yesterday that Ukraine cannot now take back Crimea by force, but did not rule out that it may be possible in the future. He claimed that Ukraine now has a strategy for the return of Crimea, and how it will be implemented—whether by military means or in some other way—depends on many factors. “I can say today that this is impossible. What will happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a year—we will see. This is not such a simple matter,” he said, reported the 112.International channel.
As for the Donbas, the military option looks increasingly likely. Dmytro Kuleba, the Kiev regime’s Foreign Minister, said during a TV interview that Kiev will not negotiate with the leaders of the two breakaway republics. His reference to them as “Russian mercenaries'’ makes that clear. “We will go to Berlin where the meeting of counselors is to take place, with the following position: safety comes first, and then the political part [of Minsk agreements] follows,” Kuleba said—which is the opposite sequence from what the Minsk agreements call for. He added that the Ukrainian side does not intend to lead the direct negotiations with the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
At the same time, Ukrainian Defense Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny claimed that the regime has no plans to attack the Donbas or Crimea. “I must reassure both the President of the Russian Federation and the citizens of Russia—there were no orders or discussions about planning a military operation to enter the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions or the temporarily occupied Crimea,” he said.
