Tonight is the first night of Passover and it is also Good Friday, so I’m going to keep this as short as possible.
This morning The Atlantic published a long, detailed interview with President Zelenskyy conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum. In the interview President Zelenskyy clearly stated his terms for ending the reinvasion of Ukraine:
If the Russians are not expelled from Ukraine’s eastern provinces, Zelensky said, “they can return to the center of Ukraine and even to Kyiv. It is possible. Now is not yet the time of victory.”
This clear statement of what has to happen – that the Russians must be expelled from the eastern portions of Ukraine that they have been occupying since 2014 – is important as people are still asking what does success look like for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s reinvasion. Zelenskyy is clear: the Russians have to go from all of Ukraine.
What this means in reality is that there is not going to be a negotiated settlement to Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine because there cannot be. Ukraine is seeking a victory on the battlefield that establishes the conditions for a successful post conflict peace. Which means inflicting enough pain on the Russians to force them out of the areas of Ukraine that they’ve been occupying for eight years.
What President Zelenskyy needs from us are the ways and means to achieve that victory.
Much of Zelensky’s time is spent on the telephone, on Zoom, on Skype, answering the questions of presidents and prime ministers—often the same questions, repeated to a maddening degree. “I like new questions,” he said. “It’s not interesting to answer the questions you already heard.” He is frustrated, for instance, by repeated requests for his wish list of weapons systems. “When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before. It’s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.”
He says he has no choice but to keep trying. “I come and say that I need this particular weapon. You have it and here it is; we know where it is stored. Can you give it to us? We can even fly our own cargo planes and pick it up; we can even send three planes per day. We need armored vehicles, for example. And not one per day. We need 200 to 300 per day. These aren’t personal taxis, just for me; our soldiers need transport. Flights are available, the whole thing can be organized, we can do all the logistics.”
Later that night, one of Zelensky’s advisers texted us with a list of what, exactly, Ukraine needs to repel the invasion from the east:
Artillery, 155 millimeters
Artillery shells, 152 millimeters as many as possible
Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (“Grad”, “Smerch”, “Tornado” or M142 HIMARS)
Armored vehicles (armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, others)
Tanks (T-72 tanks or similar tanks from the USA or Germany)
Air defense systems (S-300, “BUK” or western equivalents)
Military aircraft—MUST HAVE—to deblock our cities and save millions of Ukrainians as well as millions of Europeans)
It’s not that the various presidents and prime ministers who profess sympathy for the Ukrainian cause don’t want to help, Zelensky said: “They are not against us. They just live in a different situation. As long as they have not lost their parents and children, they do not feel the way we feel.” He makes the comparison to the conversations he has with the extraordinary defenders of Mariupol, the besieged port city where 21,000 civilians may have been killed so far. “For example, they say, ‘We need help; we have four hours.’ And even in Kyiv we don’t understand what four hours are. In Washington for sure they can’t understand. However, we are grateful to the U.S., because the planes with weapons are still coming.”
Much, much more at the link.
And more after the jump!
War for Ukraine Update 51: President Zelenskyy Delineates His TermsPost + Comments (48)