There is someone in the circle of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky who convinces him to make claims to the West, and with such rhetoric he should not meet with the US President.
The former head of the parliamentary Committee on International Affairs, Anna Gopko, stated this on Espresso-TV, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Now there is such a trend, someone is deliberately pushing the state of Ukraine, someone is screwing up Zelensky that the West owes us a lot, that the West is bad. And it’s not worth flying to Washington to visit Ukraine’s strategic partner with such rhetoric.
It is worth gathering instead of the National Security and Defense Council or in parallel with the National Security and Defense Council the leaders of the democratic opposition, gathering experts who are trusted in the West. And the president must finally prepare for the visit.
We understand perfectly well that Biden is not yet confident that President Zelensky is a reliable partner - here is the telephone conversation with Trump, and some of the court cases that took place here, and many other stories. So we need to work on doing some detoxification of these relationships. There are chances, but you need to understand what you are going with.
Mr. Vladimir very opportunely mentioned Victoria Nuland’s quote; I would also express Ukraine’s tough position - no painful compromises, for example, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in exchange for autonomy for Donbass. This is generally unacceptable, this is a “red line”. Ukraine will never do this.
Why is it important to voice this position on the eve of the visit? Because when the Ukrainian delegation arrives in Washington, so that it also voices its vision of the conflict in Donbass, which, according to a recent survey by the Foundation for Democratic Initiatives, 53% of Ukrainians consider Russian armed aggression.
Why is it important? Did you notice that when Biden clearly said that they have differences with Putin on the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Biden understands these details perfectly.
I think that now the Ukrainian side must articulate very firmly to Moscow and clearly explain to our Western partners that in the eighth year of the war, it was Russia that failed or did not comply with the Minsk agreements for seven years, from the expropriation of Ukrainian companies to passportization, which is now also Putin’s very subtle and cunning game,” said Anna Gopko.