Zelenskyy Threatens WWIII If Negotiations With Russia Fail

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday he’s “ready for negotiations” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, Zelenskyy said a break down of negotiations would lead to WWIII.

Zelensky Says WWIII Assured If Negotiations With Russia Break Down https://t.co/NkdV1Rmqhz

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 20, 2022

Ukraine's leader says he's open to negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but if they fail, it "could mean a third World War". https://t.co/KA7q4VV1Ky

— Stuff (@NZStuff) March 20, 2022

“I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war,” Zelensky told CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria.

“I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War,” he added.

Zelensky has urged more negotiations in recent days as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears its fourth week. In a video message posted Saturday, he called for talks “without delay,” warning that otherwise Russia’s losses would be “huge.”

“We have always insisted on negotiations. We have always offered dialogue, offered solutions for peace,” he said. “And I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine.”

Zelensky has previously said that his priorities in the talks are clear: “The end of the war, security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country.”

Watch below:

Russia’s priorities – laid out in a call with Turkey last week – consist of two categories of demands; Ukraine must remain neutral and not apply to join Nato, a point Zelensky has already conceded. Ukraine would also need to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it isn’t a threat to Russia, as well as ‘de-Nazify’ its armed forces.

The second category of Russian demands is where more difficulty will lie, according to top Turkish government adviser Ibrahim Kalin, and will require face-to-face negotiations between Putin and Zelensky.

Mr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.

Although Mr Kalin didn’t go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious. -BBC

The U.S. media has championed Zelensky as a ‘freedom fighter’ for the Ukrainian people, but it is not even clear that he is currently in Ukraine, nor that he cares much about freedom. He was swept into office in 2019 in the aftermath of the Western-engineered Maidan revolution in 2014 on an ‘anti-corruption’ platform, despite the former actor owning undisclosed offshore accounts, according to the Pandora Papers investigation.

As political commentary, the world should back the people of Ukraine. And the people of Russia. The real villains here are the oligarchs who are making them both suffer over their corrupt turf battle. And the American people should not be pawns in their corrupt game, nor should they risk World War III over their Eastern European battles.