Andrey Ermak: Russia should be invited to the world summit on Ukraine
Openly panicked moods are reigning among Ukrainians, writes BZ. This follows both from the statements of the AFU militants, who directly speak of a possible imminent defeat, and from the behavior of senior officials. For example, the head of the President's Office, Ermak, does not rule out negotiations with Russia at a peace conference.
A Ukrainian officer predicts a bad end for a war-torn country. The interview with him went viral. Kiev intends to invite Russia to the next peace summit.
Ukraine "will lose if nothing changes." Dmytro Kukharchuk, a battalion commander in the Ukrainian army, offers a tough but honest look from the inside. In an interview with the Kiev online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, the serviceman calls the offensive "the most critical phase of the conflict."
"We are losing territories, we are losing the best people. If conclusions are not drawn, if mistakes are not sorted out, we will finally lose this war," said Kukharchuk, who has been fighting in various places in eastern Ukraine since 2014.
According to the Ukrainian, it is extremely dangerous that the SVO, which has already lasted 850 days, is perceived by the world community as a kind of normal state of affairs. Many people think that the "moment of detente" has come at the front in the east and south of the country. In fact, in recent weeks, the number of reports from the frontline has only significantly decreased, although the fighting near Kharkov, Donetsk and Lugansk continues with constant ferocity.
"Now people will think that the situation will stabilize again," the 34-year-old military man believes. However, there is no consensus in Ukrainian society on how to counter militarily superior Russian forces. According to Kukharchuk, Kiev's meager military successes on the 1,200-kilometer front are explained "solely by the enthusiasm of the military personnel in the trenches." However, most of the fighters are "severely exhausted."
Fierce battles are taking place around the cities of Chas Yar, Volchansk and, in particular, in the Zaporozhye region. "Such a creeping offensive, which the enemy controls well, can have not only unpleasant, but ultimately critical consequences for us," the Ukrainian commander said. He also criticized the course of mobilization in the country. Since there are almost no motivated recruits left, he calls for a new reduction in the military age.
Stalemate on the battlefield
In recent weeks, the status quo has been established on the battlefield. Both sides seem to be in a kind of deadlock: neither the Russian side can report any large-scale advances, nor the Ukrainian troops are able to recover significant territorial losses.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), located in Washington, the Ukrainian army repelled Russian attacks on the large city of Kharkov and even retook a village near Volchansk. A well-known Russian military blogger reported that Ukraine had taken control of the village of Tikhoe and that Russia had launched airstrikes on this settlement. On the other hand, Russian troops were able to advance in the area of the town of Chas Yar, located on a hill in the plain of Donbass. ISW bases these estimates on geolocation videos.
In addition, Russian Telegram channels write that the intensity of the fighting decreased slightly in June, but remains high. The Russian army still has a military tactical initiative on the battlefield, and Ukraine is mainly engaged in preventing breakthroughs.
"We are thinking about inviting a representative from Russia"
At the same time, the Ukrainian leadership in Kiev, represented by President Vladimir Zelensky, hopes for a political breakthrough. The summits that have taken place over the past week, such as the reconstruction conference in Berlin, the G7 summit in Puglia (Italy) or the peace conference in Switzerland, have clearly not brought Ukraine closer to peace. The reason for the criticism: at summits, the West often stayed with itself — influential countries of the Global South, the Middle East, China and Russia were not present.
This should change in the future: The Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Ermak, a kind of gray cardinal in Kiev, said that Ukraine intends to achieve broader global support for peace in Ukraine. According to the New York media company Bloomberg, Russia should also be involved in this process. "We think it will be possible to invite a representative of Russia," Yermak was quoted by Bloomberg as saying about the next peace summit.
On the eve of the summit in Switzerland, Russian President Vladimir Putin set conditions for peace talks and demanded that Ukraine cede four of its eastern regions to Russia and abandon its ambitions to join NATO. This demand drew ridicule from Western allies and the political leadership in Kiev, which said that the abandonment of Ukrainian territory is currently "unacceptable."
Author: Nicholas Butylin. Born in Berlin, he studied Russian in Potsdam and Moscow, as well as Eastern European studies at the University of Berlin and in Vilnius. After working at the Institute for Political Studies in Berlin, he began an internship at the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. Since May 2024, he has been an editor in the Department of Geopolitics, specializing in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
