Welcome back to another edition of My Take 5, your weekly round-up of top international news. This week we are covering Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin, EU’s unveiling of the 21st sanctions package against Russia, Pashinyan wins Armenia’s election, tensions flare up again in the US-Israel war against Iran, and the Trumpian Fifa World Cup readies for kick off. So, let’s get to it.
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Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin:
In a bold move, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy wrote an open letter to Putin asking for a direct meeting between the leaders to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy even suggested the venue for such a meeting – Turkey, Switzerland, or one of the Gulf Arab states. He also proposed setting a date for such a meeting. After all, all wars finally end in negotiations and a political settlement. So, it would be logical for Zelenskyy and Putin to meet to resolve all issues and put a permanent end to this horrible war.
But what was Russia’s answer? Nyet. Putin dismissed the letter as “rude” and extolled Russian soldiers to “carry on their work”. He also said that he sees no point in meeting Zelenskyy. This was followed by Kremlin officials saying that developments on the battlefield, and not negotiations, would determine the course of the war.
This totally busts all the assertions by Moscow and its apologists that Russia actually wants peace. This is the clearest signal yet that Russia has no intention of ending this war. Let this be on record. Here was Zelenskyy clearly stipulating a way to end this madness – a leaders’ summit to be immediately followed by a ceasefire, an all-for-all prisoners exchange and negotiations based on the current line of contact. Nothing could be more fair. But no, Moscow wants to send more of its men to the Ukrainian meat grinder, despite the fact that in recent months the frontline is practically frozen, Ukraine has seized the momentum with its long- and medium-range drone and missile strikes, and has even liberated some of its territories.
In fact, not only has Russia lost more territory than it has gained in Ukraine in recent months, it is also losing soldiers at a terrifying rate. Russia lost more than 30,000 soldiers in May with 63% killed and 37% injured. At this rate, Russia can’t recruit enough men to replace the ones it is losing. And another round of mobilisation would be politically disastrous for Putin.
