Image: APA/AFP/Messinis
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken does not rule out long-term negotiations on Ukraine’s future borders. But the decision lies with the Ukrainians, he told a parliamentary committee in Washington. Any peace agreement must be “just and lasting”. “I think there are areas in Ukraine that Ukrainians are determined to fight for on the ground. And maybe there are areas that they decide they want to try to regain by other means,” Blinken said .
According to observers, Blinken indicated that the US does not believe that Ukrainian troops are likely to recapture all of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia – especially Crimea.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed a summit on his peace plan in a European capital. “Wouldn’t that contribute to Europe’s global strength? I’m sure it would,” he said at the EU summit in Brussels, to which he was connected via video.
More than a year after the start of the war against Ukraine, Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medvedev resorted to a sensational method to increase domestic arms production: in front of representatives of an armaments commission, he quoted Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (1879-1953), as can be seen from a video that Medvedev published on social networks.
Medvedev is considered a fervent supporter of the Russian war of aggression against the neighboring country. In the video, he can be heard sitting at the head of a long table reading from a World War II telegram from Stalin calling on a factory in the city of Chelyabinsk to produce tank parts on time.
Unusual appearance
“If it turns out in a few days that you are violating your duty to the fatherland, I will start beating you up like criminals,” the 1941 letter continued.
Afterwards, Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said to the group: “Colleagues, I want you to listen to me and remember the generalissimo’s words.” Several Russian media subsequently reported on this unusual appearance.
Russia lacks military trainers
According to British intelligence experts, the Russian army is finding it increasingly difficult to train its recruits. This emerges from the daily update of the London Ministry of Defense on the Ukraine war on Friday. Accordingly, 1,000 soldiers were recently transferred back to Ukraine after exercises in a camp in Belarus.
“Although no new troop transfers there have been identified, Russia most likely left the tent camp in place, indicating that they are continuing the exercise program,” the British experts said.
The fact that Russia is relying on the less experienced Belarusian army to train its personnel indicates that the war has thrown the Russian training program off balance. Russian trainers are largely deployed in combat in Ukraine.
Source: Nachrichten
