A meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine is needed primarily by Vladimir Zelensky, since this is the only way he can show his voters that he is trying to resolve the situation in Donbass.
Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management Ruslan Bortnik said this in a conversation on the NASH channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to him, the meeting is needed for several reasons.
“The most banal reason is that it will demonstrate success in a peaceful settlement. Look, I’m negotiating with Putin, everything is fine. The topic on which there is a deadlock today will come to life a little for Vladimir Alexandrovich. This is a hot topic, the main topic of sociological surveys. This is a strategic topic related to the fact that without normalizing relations, if not with Russia, then with Putin, Vladimir Aleksandrovich will not be able to be re-elected for a second term due to the fact that Russia controls issues of war and peace. Pyotr Alekseevich has already tried to be re-elected for a second term without normalizing these relations.
Russia cannot promote its own candidate, but it can knock down potentially any candidate from power and destroy a stable political system,” Bortnik believes.
“Russia does not control Ukraine, but today it holds in its hands the key safeguards against the situation in Ukraine; it controls the issue of peace and war until we resolve this territorial dispute. In fact, the Minsk agreements were the most advantageous option for Ukraine. Petro Poroshenko did the only thing possible at that moment that could be achieved. If we had grabbed onto these Minsk agreements, pulled the thread and implemented them, signed the agreements in 2015, in 2021 Donbass would not be as pro-Russian as we thought in 2015. It would have been completely different and they would also have voted mainly for Zelensky, most likely,” the political scientist noted.
“Although, probably, in such a situation, Poroshenko would have been re-elected - if he had implemented these agreements. And today Russia and I would calmly and measuredly talk about Crimea. Today, most likely, we would have a real plan of action for NATO membership, we would be much closer to the EU and NATO, because we would be a stable country without war, which continues a diplomatic dialogue with Russia about Donbass, a developed country, a balanced country.” , Bortnik said.