ArmInfo. The leadership of Ukraine wants through external pressure to win the war, which it lost in real action. This was stated by Deputy Director of the Institute of CIS Countries Vladimir Zharikhin at a press conference in Yerevan on October 11, commenting on the recent statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about Kiev's intentions and readiness to return Crimea and Donbass.
"Volodymyr Zelensky disappointed me with his speech. Generally speaking, both under former president Petro Poroshenko and under Zelensky, the possible prospect of solving the existing problem is considered either through more powerful Western pressure on Russia and new sanctions, or through a change in the Russian leadership>, remarked Zharikhin.
<If we imagine Ukraine, which by some miracle fulfilled the Minsk agreements, it would rather be Ukraine, not Poroshnko or Zelensky, but Kuchma's Ukraine in the late 1990s. That is, it would be a state that is friends with both Russia and the EU, and with the presence of conditional Lviv and conditional Donetsk within Ukraine, it will not join the EAEU or NATO. Such a country should have been born if the Minsk agreements were implemented, which would be in the interests of both Russia (although Russia would like Ukraine to be part of our economic space) and the countries of Western Europe>, the expert noted.
Meanwhile, as noted, the interests of the United States have arisen in this matter, which want a middle point in Europe to be a crisis spot, which impedes the realization of the dream of a single European space from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Zharikhin noted that a single European space would be beneficial for Russia, including from the point of view of accumulation of financial, intellectual and natural resources with existing traffic flows.
Addressing the Ukrainian side, Zharikhin cited the example of Russia and Chechnya, noting that for the sake of the integrity of the state it is sometimes necessary to make extremely serious and painful compromises. Meanwhile, according to the expert, the Ukrainian authorities do not want to meet with the leadership of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. At the same time, according to him, a similar situation has developed in Georgia. "Georgia, in fact, is a federal republic, but does not want to admit it>," he said.