It is not so much about presenting a plan, the most important elements of which have been revealed in recent weeks, but to send a message of unity. On Wednesday, October 16, two and a half years after the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented his “victory plan” to Parliament in a speech intended to reassure and unite at a particularly dark for his country. .
The Presidency has been discussing the possibility of starting peace negotiations with Russia for several months. Ukrainians are worried about the outcome of the US presidential election in November, which could upend the policy of supporting their most powerful ally. Another area of anxiety concerns the coming winter, when Kremlin forces have been working for months to destroy most of the country’s energy production capabilities with missile and drone attacks. On the front, in the east, kyiv’s forces, less equipped and numerous than the Russian army, continue to retreat.
But if calls to negotiate advance among the population while the war lasts, the vast majority continues to reject territorial concessions. “If by negotiations we mean freezing the current situation with Russia, which will take advantage of it and then go on the offensive, then no, the Ukrainians are not ready for that. Ukrainians need security guarantees »says Oleksiy Haran, professor and researcher at the kyiv Foundation of Democratic Initiatives.
In this context, the “victory plan” presented by Zelensky essentially aims to allow Ukraine to obtain military reinforcement and security guarantees from its allies to strengthen its position. However, some criticism has been heard about the fact that the country’s future essentially depends on the allies. On Facebook, deputy Oleksiy Hontcharenko, from former president Petro Poroshenko’s party (2014-2019), European Solidarity, the main opposition group in Parliament, criticized a plan “very unrealistic”. “There was no real debate about our capabilities. There were only empty words.”says the elected official.
“Zelensky deliberately sets the bar too high”
The Ukrainian government’s request for a formal invitation to join NATO or the possibility of using long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory have so far been rejected by allies, who fear a new escalation of the war.. “Zelensky is a maximalistanalyzes political scientist Volodymyr Fessenko, director of the Penta political studies laboratory, based in kyiv, in a column published in the media NV.UA. It deliberately sets the bar high for our political demands, knowing that there will be no immediate response. In two and a half years of war, he became accustomed to being told first “no,” then “we’ll think about it,” and finally “yes.” But the first step is to offer our partners a concrete solution and then insist persistently. »
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