Is the war in Ukraine approaching a turning point? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s allies would have a plan for a negotiation with Putin. The newspaper “Repubblica” reports some confidential relations between Washington and Brussels in which strategists press for the Kiev resistance to reach the banks of the Dnipro to propose “a ceasefire from a position of strength” in the Donbass.
Correspondent Claudio Tito writes that Kherson is a symbolic city: decisive for access to the sea and fundamental for the control of water resources and for river transport. Recovering it would mean changing the direction of the conflict: “I agree. Even in the short term. When the advantage position will be evident. After the reconquest of the southern city of Kherson, where one of the toughest battles against the Russian army is being fought. (…). Defeating the Russian army at one of the most important ports of the Sea of Azov and Crimea could mean the real possibility of starting a first real negotiation with Moscow. In the relations that circulate between the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance and the interlocutors of the EU, in fact, one starts from an assumption: the Russian armies are now under pressure. Their reaction is defensively focused on the destruction of infrastructure, the construction of a triple line of trenches and the use of natural barriers such as the Dnipro River”.
The US message to the Ukrainian government is clear: if and when Kherson is recaptured, Zelensky must open up to mediation. Having consolidated some strategic cornerstones, overthrown the fate of the invasion and “with the knife on the side of the cable” we can discuss: “That is why Washington and NATO also confirmed to Zelensky the next shipment of other missiles with a range capable of inhibiting the action of drones built by Iran. Other weapons, therefore, will arrive in Kiev precisely with the aim of reaching the goal in Kherson”, underlines the journalist.
There are two risks to avoid: the desperate move to resort to tactical nuclear bombs by a Russia on the brink of humiliation and the total defeat of Putin because “it would hand over control of the Federation to China. It would be like going from the pot to the fire. Better, therefore, a hostile but wounded and independent leader from Beijing.” Finally, in the background, we read that the midterm elections in America will have a weight, that the Biden-Putin meeting at the G20 in Bali has not yet been skipped and that in fact the war has entered a new phase thanks to a kind of “ parallel convergence” of Kremlin and White House interests.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
