By Lateef Adegbite
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, appears to have sent a message to Vladimir Putin, of Russia, that he is not the only person who knows how to set conditions that could end the over three war-old war between the two countries.
Acting out a script of the of the of the European Union, EU, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, Zelenskyy, according to informed Diplomatic sources had set two conditions to end the war with Russian.
One of the conditions was the Ukrainian Leader demand that his home country must join NATO, ‘’to ensure adequate security from the security Organisation, before any peace Negotiations with Putin’’. Another condition that was said to been set Zelenskyy was that the US and NATO, must provide additional weapons to Ukraine to sustain the war with Russia. Already, the country had demanded for a $90 billion weapons supply from the US. It was said to have requested for a ”tomahawk” long range missile from the US to strike deep into Russia.
JD Vance, the country’s Vice President had said that the White House is already considering the request which might change the direction of the war. Preside Trump may have put smiles on the face of Zelensky as he was said to have released $300 million to his government to assist in buying weapons just as the polish government had approved $60 billion for the country as well.
Many had expected that Zelenskyy will take advantage of the invitation extended to him by Mark Rutte, Secretary General of the EU, based on agreement with the other European Leaders to join the Organisation but he was said to have acted on the advice of Germany Chancellor Frederich Merz, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister to turn it down. They have their reason.
The EU, Parliament and Leadership had redrawn the map of Ukraine which no longer recognized Crimea, Luhansk, Donbas, Kherson, Zaporizhya blasts and Mykolayiv that had been captured and annexed by Russia as part of the central European country, which the European Leaders are opposed to.
Zelenskyy did not stop there. He was said to have demanded that Russia must return all its nuclear weapon transferred to the country. Acting under pressure from the US and other world powers, including China, in 1994, Ukraine had agreed to transfer the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR, nuclear weapons stockpiled in the country to Russia for dismantlement of its arms and became a party to the Treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Russia had taken over the assets and liabilities of the old USSR, based on the agreement of the world powers, forcing the US and Russia to compensate Ukraine with an assurance to respect the country and its Sovereignty.
But looking back after over a decade of misery afflicted by Russia on the country, which Zelenskyy had said the international Community has deemed it unable or unwilling to prevent. The aggrieved Zelenskyy has come to the inevitable conclusion that if the old Soviet Union stockpile of nuclear weapons were still in the custody of Ukraine, Putin would think twice before deploying Russia troops to invading his country in 20222, in a war that had dragged on till date.
Zelenskyy was said to have told past and present Donald Trump’s Administrations of the US, to that ‘’it was a misstate to have transferred the nuclear weapons to Russia’’, an order which the country had carried out against its wish. The Ukrainian Leader who could not hide his feelings and now ready to fight to fight to the last man in the ongoing with Russia had said that the transfer of the old Soviet Union nuclear weapons in the country to Russia has failed ‘’to secure Ukraine and the transatlantic security insisting’’ that such a mistake would never be repeated in future that could give the Russia military an edge over its own troops.
A Diplomat had confirmed that the Ukrainian Leadership was initially hesitant not to transfer the country nuclear weapons to Russia but finally agreed to do so when information filtered out that the top Leadership of the US, Britain, France and Germany, Governments were involved in taking the decision.
Until Zelenskyy spelt out his own conditions and demands on Russia and the US that must be fulfilled to end the over three years war, Putin had demanded that Zelenskyy drop his ambitions of dragging Ukraine into NATO but remain neutral as well as keep NATO and EU, troops out of the country.
He was said to have demanded that the Ukrainian Leader and his western sponsors must forget about the Crimea, Donbas, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporihzhia, and Other Ukrainian regions which had been captured and occupied by Russian troops in the ongoing war as it cannot be returned to the country as the regions had been annexed and now part of Russia.
Note, that the Ukrainian region of Donbas particular, over the years had been contested by Russia with military aggression because of its rich mineral resources like Lithium and other rare earth minerals. It was not surprising why Zelenskyy who is not ready to cede the region to Russia, had signed a deal involving the country’s natural resources, after months of contentious negotiations with the US to forestall Russia from taking over the region and extract its minerals.
In spite of the fact that the two countries had set up an investment fund to search for minerals in Ukraine and set out how revenue generated from mineral extraction in the country would be shared but that had stopped Russia from capturing the mineral resources -rich and industrial area of Ukraine.
Notwithstanding that the Ukrainian Donbas region had been occupied by the Russia military; the industrial region remains a primary battlefield in the ongoing war between the two countries but Zelenskyy is still not ready to let Russia control all of the region as it controls around the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk
Putin, had sounded it loud and clear to the hearing of Trump, the American President that any settlement to end the war with Ukraine must include giving full control of the Donbas region to Russia which is a bitter pill to swallow by the Ukrainian Leader, meaning rewarding Russia for Launching a war conquest against Ukraine in 2022.
It would be recalled that the same promises of economic transformation, enhanced security cooperation, and job creation for the people that was to have been promised the Ukrainian Leadership and they fall for it pushing the country into war with Russia was said to have been made by the North American country to Afghanistan to reclaim Bagram Air Base site close to the Asian country of China.
President Trump may have wanted to reclaim the Afghanistan Bagram Air Base for his home country, US, because it is an hour flight away from the location where China makes its nuclear weapons but was turned down by the Afghan Taliban, who were said to have dismissed the US, President‘s threat that’’ bad things would happen to the country if its demand was not granted to prevent China from taking over the Bagram air base.
Trump may have come to the conclusion that further push to reclaim the Afghan Bagram airbase that was developed by the US but forced to withdraw its troops in 2021, when the Taliban swept back to power could ignite crisis in the region.
Moreso, the opposition from China and Russia, which had huge investments in the Afghanistan in rare earth sector and the opposition coming from Iran and Pakistan, appears to have sent a shocking signal to the US , that Afghanistan may not likely be another Ukraine which had played into its hands and now suffering it as the country has become a shadow of itself because of the massive destruction of basic infrastructural facilities and the over two million people, both military personnel and civilians believed to have been lost to the war, could not take it.
