Russia and Ukraine do not seem ready to declare a truce as did Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, despite the fact that both presidents, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, have drawn parallels between both conflicts.

Putin accuses Israel and Ukraine of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets, and Zelensky openly compared The Kremlin and Hamas.

Both sides are gathering supplies for the winter. Nobody is talking about a possible Christmas holiday after Moscow had already rejected the possibility of an Olympic truce in mid-2024.

Actually, Moscow intensified attacks along the entire front.especially around the bastions of Avdovka (Donetsk region) and Kupyansk (Kharkiv).

Ukraine, whose capital was the target of a massive drone attack this morning, continues to try to advance south of the Dnieper River, although its senior officials openly admit that In other sectors they are on the defensive.

Without trust, the world is not worth living.

The leader of the presidential party in the Verkhovna Rada (the legislative body of Ukraine), David Arajamia, said on television today that during the negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul Russia tried to get Kyiv to adhere to neutrality.

“For them (the Russians) this was the most important thing. “They were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality – as Finland did at the time – and committed not to join NATO,” said Arayamiya, who then headed the Ukrainian delegation.

He recalled that this would require amendments to the Constitution. “No, there was no confidence that the Russians would cope. This can only be done if there are security guarantees (…) We will only be able to work if we have 100% confidence that this will not happen again. And this security does not exist,” he said.

In response, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky admitted today that The “Peace Treaty” was ready and so Moscow withdrew its troops from northern Kyiv as a sign of goodwill.

“It is obvious that the (Ukrainian) neo-Nazi regime is looking for a way out. It’s not too late to return to the path of negotiations (…) But only now under different conditions, taking into account the new territorial reality,” said Slutsky, blaming the West for the failure of those negotiations.

A tragedy with no end in sight

Putin acknowledged this week at the G20 summit, where he shared the stage with Western leaders for the first time in a long time, that War really is a “tragedy” and that “we need to think about how to stop this.”

But then he criticized the West for its double standards for not caring about the suffering of pro-Russian Russians in Donbass and Palestinians in Gaza as much as it pain of Israelis and Ukrainians.

The leader of the only legal opposition party in Russia (Yabloko), Grigory Yavlinsky, made an unprecedented gesture: He personally asked Putin to stop the war.

“The purpose of the meeting was a ceasefire. He is the only person who can make this decision (…) There is no peace plan. This is fantasy. There is a thesis about the need to stop hostilities. “That’s it,” he told the local press.

The presidential election in March could tip the scales. Although politically Putin has time in his favor – a new six-year term – the situation is unsustainable from a social point of view (more than 50,000 dead) and from an economic point of view (40% of defense and security spending).

Zelensky sticks to his opinion

The deep pessimism that gripped Kyiv after the rejection in the US Congress new aid package for Ukraine appears to have disappeared, although €50 billion in European Union (EU) military aid is now also in doubt.

“We need three wins. The first is in Congress. It’s a challenge. Not easy. Not everything depends on us,” Zelensky said while receiving Latvian leader Edgars Rinkevich in Kyiv. The second and third victory will be assistance from Brussels and accession to the EU.

A breath of fresh air came from Germany, which announced a new package this week. 1.3 billion euros allocated to protect Ukrainian skies and another Patriot anti-aircraft system is on the way.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is experiencing a clear stalemate, but Zelensky does not want to hear about it and has advised the military not to devote itself to politics, since that is what he is already here for.

“Russia is making the most of various problems in the world to redirect any assistance to Ukraine. “They are doing everything they can to divert attention from the war in our country,” he said, referring to the conflict in the Middle East.

EFE