(Moscow) The Kremlin said Wednesday that forcing Russia to make peace in Ukraine, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it at the UN the day before, would be an “absolutely fatal mistake.”
“The position of trying to force Russia to make peace is an absolutely fatal mistake. It is impossible to force Russia to make peace,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing.
“Russia is in favor of peace,” he said, “but on condition that the foundations of its security are ensured and the objectives” of the offensive in Ukraine are achieved.
“Without achieving these goals, it is impossible to constrain Russia,” he warned.
On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky urged the UN Security Council to “force Russia to peace,” after more than two and a half years of a conflict that has left tens of thousands of civilian and military dead.
The Ukrainian leader, who has been in the United States since Sunday evening, is due to present to his American counterpart Joe Biden and Congress in Washington the details of his “victory plan” aimed at ending the large-scale Russian offensive in his country.
Negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv have been at a standstill since spring 2022, with each side firmly defending irreconcilable demands.
Ukraine, led by President Zelensky, regularly claims to want to regain its sovereignty over all territories occupied by its Russian neighbor, including the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Kyiv has already proposed a 10-point peace plan, supported by the West, involving the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, nearly 700,000 troops, according to figures presented by Vladimir Putin. A proposal dismissed by Moscow.
The Russian president, who ordered his army’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, has for his part repeatedly repeated his “conditions”: the abandonment of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to annex in addition to Crimea, and the assurance that Kyiv renounces joining NATO. Demands that are unacceptable to Ukrainians and Westerners.
Russia has also already announced that it will not participate in the second summit on peace in Ukraine requested by Kyiv at the end of the year, after a first meeting in Switzerland last June.
The more or less assumed attempts at mediation by China – a close ally of Russia –, India, or even the Vatican have so far not allowed the official resumption of discussions between Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian military claims two new locations in eastern Ukraine
The Russian military said on Wednesday it had captured two new towns in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where its troops continued to advance against outnumbered and underpowered Ukrainian forces.
“Units of the Southern group have liberated the towns of Ostroye and Grigorovka” (Gostré and Grygorivka in Ukrainian), the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry did not specify where exactly these villages are located, but a locality named Gostre is located slightly east of the town of Kurakhove, which is controlled by Kyiv’s forces.
In recent hours, military observers have become particularly concerned about the situation in Vougledar, a town further south in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainian troops have been repelling intense Russian attacks for more than two and a half years.
On Wednesday, the British Ministry of Defense said in a daily report that Kremlin troops have made advances around Vougledar, now threatening the city from three different sides.
Contacted by AFP, the 72e The Ukrainian separate mechanized brigade holding the city and the command responsible for the sector declined to comment.
The leader of the Russian occupation in the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, was quoted by the Ria Novosti agency as saying on Wednesday that fighting was already taking place in Vougledar.
“The city is located on a height, it is one of the few places on the front where there is an advantage of height. […] “This allowed us to repel enemy attacks for a long time,” respected Ukrainian military expert Sergei Zgurets told Ukrainian media outlet TV Espreso.
Ukraine, struggling in the east, launched a major attack on August 6 in the Russian region of Kursk, seizing several hundred square kilometers according to Kyiv.
She hoped to force Moscow to redeploy its troops in the Donetsk region and thus slow their advances, but Russian soldiers are continuing to advance for the time being.