TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org

Zelensky speaks with the urgency of a leader who knows that he may be facing his last best chance for substantial foreign assistance. Biden is nearing the end of his Presidency, and may be wary of dramatically increasing U.S. involvement, lest he create political headwinds for Kamala Harris in the weeks before November’s election. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been vague on his policy toward Ukraine. During this month’s debate with Harris, he conspicuously declined to speak of a Ukrainian victory, saying only “I want the war to stop.” In the U.S., Zelensky will discuss his victory plan not only with Biden but also with Harris and Trump. He is clearly aware that the results of the U.S. election hold potentially decisive implications for his country, but he maintains the pose of a man who believes he can still bend history in his favor. “The most important thing now is determination,” Zelensky said in a Presidential address in the days before we met.

During our interview in the situation room, which has been edited for length and clarity, Zelensky skipped between history and political philosophy, military strategy and the mechanisms of international diplomacy. He is a discursive speaker, sometimes hard to pin down, but unfailingly focussed on one overarching message: Ukraine is fighting a war not only with Western backing but on behalf of the West. Ukraine’s sacrifices, Zelensky argues, have kept the U.S. and European nations from having to make more personally painful ones. The argument is clear, even if the response is sometimes disappointing. “If he doesn’t want to support it, I cannot force him,” Zelensky told me, of his upcoming meeting at the White House to discuss his victory plan with Biden. “I can only keep on explaining.”

For some time, when you talked about the end of the war, you talked about a total victory for Ukraine: Ukraine would return to its 1991 borders, affirm its sovereignty in Crimea, and retake all of its territory from Russia. But in recent months, you have become more open to the idea of negotiations—through peace summits, for example, the first of which was conducted this summer, in Switzerland. What has changed in your thinking, and your country’s thinking, about how this war might end?

When I’m asked, “How do you define victory,” my response is entirely sincere. There’s been no change in my mind-set. That’s because victory is about justice. A just victory is one whose outcome satisfies all—those who respect international law, those who live in Ukraine, those who lost their loved ones and relatives. For them the price is high. For them there will never be an excuse for what Putin and his Army have done. You can’t simply sew this wound up like a surgeon because it’s in your heart, in your soul. And that is why the crucial nuance is that, although justice does not close our wounds, it affords the possibility of a world that we all recognize as fair. It is not fair that someone’s son or daughter was taken from them, but, unfortunately, there is a finality to this injustice and it is impossible to bring them back. But justice at least provides some closure.

The fact that Ukraine desires a just victory is not the issue; the issue is that Putin has zero desire to end the war on any reasonable terms at all. If the world is united against him, he feigns an interest in dialogue—“I’m ready to negotiate, let’s do it, let’s sit down together”—but this is just talk. It’s empty rhetoric, a fiction, that keeps the world from standing together with Ukraine and isolating Putin. He pretends to open the door to dialogue, and those countries that seek a geopolitical balance—China, for one, but also some other Asian and African states—say, “Ah, see, he hears us and he’s ready to negotiate.” But it is all just appearance. From our side, we see the game he is playing and we amend our approaches to ending the war. Where he offers empty rhetoric, we offer a real formula for bringing peace, a concrete plan for how we can end the war.

Zelensky speaks with the urgency of a leader who knows that he may be facing his last best chance for substantial foreign assistance. Biden is nearing the end of his Presidency, and may be wary of dramatically increasing U.S. involvement, lest he create political headwinds for Kamala Harris in the weeks before November’s election. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been vague on his policy toward Ukraine. During this month’s debate with Harris, he conspicuously declined to speak of a Ukrainian victory, saying only “I want the war to stop.” In the U.S., Zelensky will discuss his victory plan not only with Biden but also with Harris and Trump. He is clearly aware that the results of the U.S. election hold potentially decisive implications for his country, but he maintains the pose of a man who believes he can still bend history in his favor. “The most important thing now is determination,” Zelensky said in a Presidential address in the days before we met.

During our interview in the situation room, which has been edited for length and clarity, Zelensky skipped between history and political philosophy, military strategy and the mechanisms of international diplomacy. He is a discursive speaker, sometimes hard to pin down, but unfailingly focussed on one overarching message: Ukraine is fighting a war not only with Western backing but on behalf of the West. Ukraine’s sacrifices, Zelensky argues, have kept the U.S. and European nations from having to make more personally painful ones. The argument is clear, even if the response is sometimes disappointing. “If he doesn’t want to support it, I cannot force him,” Zelensky told me, of his upcoming meeting at the White House to discuss his victory plan with Biden. “I can only keep on explaining.”

For some time, when you talked about the end of the war, you talked about a total victory for Ukraine: Ukraine would return to its 1991 borders, affirm its sovereignty in Crimea, and retake all of its territory from Russia. But in recent months, you have become more open to the idea of negotiations—through peace summits, for example, the first of which was conducted this summer, in Switzerland. What has changed in your thinking, and your country’s thinking, about how this war might end?

When I’m asked, “How do you define victory,” my response is entirely sincere. There’s been no change in my mind-set. That’s because victory is about justice. A just victory is one whose outcome satisfies all—those who respect international law, those who live in Ukraine, those who lost their loved ones and relatives. For them the price is high. For them there will never be an excuse for what Putin and his Army have done. You can’t simply sew this wound up like a surgeon because it’s in your heart, in your soul. And that is why the crucial nuance is that, although justice does not close our wounds, it affords the possibility of a world that we all recognize as fair. It is not fair that someone’s son or daughter was taken from them, but, unfortunately, there is a finality to this injustice and it is impossible to bring them back. But justice at least provides some closure.

The fact that Ukraine desires a just victory is not the issue; the issue is that Putin has zero desire to end the war on any reasonable terms at all. If the world is united against him, he feigns an interest in dialogue—“I’m ready to negotiate, let’s do it, let’s sit down together”—but this is just talk. It’s empty rhetoric, a fiction, that keeps the world from standing together with Ukraine and isolating Putin. He pretends to open the door to dialogue, and those countries that seek a geopolitical balance—China, for one, but also some other Asian and African states—say, “Ah, see, he hears us and he’s ready to negotiate.” But it is all just appearance. From our side, we see the game he is playing and we amend our approaches to ending the war. Where he offers empty rhetoric, we offer a real formula for bringing peace, a concrete plan for how we can end the war.

Volodymyr Zelensky Has a Plan for Ukraine’s Victory - The New Yorker Interview

The Ukrainian President on how to end the war with Russia, the empty rhetoric of Vladimir Putin, and what the U.S. election could mean for the fate of his country.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s situation room, where the Ukrainian President monitors developments in his country’s war with Russia, is a windowless chamber, largely taken up by a rectangular conference table and ringed by blackened screens, deep inside the Presidential Administration Building, in central Kyiv. On a recent afternoon, as I sat inside, waiting for Zelensky, I heard his voice—a syrupy baritone, speckled with gravel—before he entered, dressed in his signature military-adjacent style: black T-shirt, olive-drab pants, brown boots. He was in the midst of preparations for a trip to the U.S., where he is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly and, crucially, meet with Joe Biden at the White House, to present what Zelensky has taken to calling Ukraine’s “victory plan.”

Zelensky is saving the details for his meeting with Biden, but he has said that the plan contains a number of elements related to Ukraine’s long-term security and geopolitical position, which presumably includes joining NATO on an accelerated schedule, and the provision of Western military aid with fewer restrictions. (In the run-up to the trip, Zelensky has been lobbying his allies in the West to allow Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. and other Western countries.) Ukraine’s incursion last month into Kursk, a border region in western Russia—where Ukrainian forces currently occupy around four hundred square miles of Russian territory—is also part of this plan, according to Zelensky, in that it provides Kyiv with leverage against the Kremlin, while also demonstrating that its military is capable of going on the offensive.

Zelensky still presents as the person we have come to know from television screens and social media: an impassioned communicator, confident and unrelenting to the point of stubbornness, an entertainer turned statesman who has weaponized the force of his personality in a thoroughly modern form of warfare. But it is also abundantly clear that the war, now in its third year, cannot be won on Zelensky’s talents alone. A long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive fizzled out without much result last year. Russian forces have since steadily increased their foothold in the Donbas, in Ukraine’s east—a grinding campaign in which Russia suffers enormous losses yet manages to march forward, inch by bloody inch. The city of Pokrovsk, a logistics and transport hub in the Donbas, is Russia’s latest target. It is being systematically destroyed by artillery shelling and “glide bombs”—Soviet-era munitions, retrofitted with wings and G.P.S. navigation.

Zelensky has pleaded for more Western military aid, which would certainly help but would not solve Ukraine’s other problems: an inability to sufficiently mobilize and train new soldiers, and ongoing struggles to maintain effective communication and coördination on the front. Meanwhile, across the country, a lack of air defenses has allowed Russia to strike power plants and other energy infrastructure; a recent U.N. report predicted that, come winter, power outages may last up to eighteen hours a day. Polls show increasing levels of fatigue for the war in Ukrainian society, an uptick in those willing to consider peace without a total victory, and an erosion in public trust in Zelensky himself.

A beautiful view of the detonating ammunition depot.
https://t.me/ukrainejournal/19040

A SEA OF FLAGS 🇺🇦

A comparison of how many flags of fallen soldiers there were in 2022 and how many there were so far in 2024 on the central square of Kyiv.

A permanent display stands in Kyiv - a flag for every soldier killed.

5 Finnish flags to add to this, 5 volunteers from Finland were killed. 😢

Add to that the huge number of murdered civilians. So many precious lives lost. 😭
@ukrainejournal

russias week of terror on ukraine, the enemy used more than 900 guided aerial bombs, about 400 "shahedis", and almost 30 missiles of various types.

🇺🇦@ukrainejournal

2 years ago Ukraine de-occupied most regions of Kharkiv and found mass graves particularly IZYUM. russ atrocities. @ukrainejournal

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-real-reason-donald-trump-is-mailing-it-in/58258/

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-truth-behind-the-republican-attempt-to-steal-the-election/58262/

Lots of interesting reading in these articles
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/trump-just-gave-something-away/58260/

Good morning. Rainy here. Clear skies when I went inside. Then a violent middle of the night thunderstorm.

The Kremlin fears the public's reaction to Ukraine's strikes deep into russia. This issue is a sensitive one for vladimir putin's inner circle.

According to RBC-Ukraine's sources, a decision on strikes deep into russia will still be made, and this greatly irritates the russians. In addition to addressing purely military and logistical objectives, such as significantly reducing the aggressors' military potential, these strikes could also provoke discontent among the russian population.

“Our intelligence is confident that such attacks on russia can shake up their population, and this will force the Kremlin towers to think about something and come up with some solutions. Of course, we do not know what is in the minds of the russians. But the hysteria on the other side shows that we have probably touched on a painful topic for them,”
says one of the interlocutors.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Western approval for long-range strikes would reduce the intensity of russia's attacks on Ukraine.

Moreover, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the Office of the President, commented on the strike on a depot in Toropets, Tver region, in an interview with the RBC-Ukraine. He clarified that permission to strike deep into russia would significantly increase the number of such attacks.

While waiting for a green light from Western countries to use their long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside russia, Ukraine is relying on domestically produced drones, which are considerably cheaper than missiles and no less effective.

In recent months, Ukraine has increased the number of strikes using homemade drones against russian critical infrastructure essential to powering russia's war machine. Faced with attacks using dozens of drones at once, the russian air defense proved to be overstretched and not always effective.

"Despite russia's extensive air defense capabilities, there are limitations to protecting all targets effectively,"
Mattias Eken, a defense and security expert at RAND Europe, told the Kyiv Independent.

"The objective is to demonstrate to the russian populace that the state's defense capabilities are insufficient, highlighting vulnerabilities within russia,"
Eken added.

@ukrainejournal

WW3 #BREAKING – Russia: Gas cylinder explosion triggers large-scale fire in Podolsk

A major fire broke out at the Lvovskaya railway station in Podolsk. The fire 🔥 started after a gas cylinder exploded in one of the stalls. As a result, the area of the fire has reached 800sqm.
@ukrainejournal

🇬🇧🚀 UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has indicated that delicate negotiations with the White House to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia are ongoing, arguing it was a time for “nerve and guts”, - The Guardian

🇺🇦 Lammy said that hardship and challenges of the war in Ukraine would get “deeper and harsher”, particularly heading into “the back end of 2025 into 2026” and beyond.

"According to plan? Nazi troops invaded the Kursk region. We didn't have that in our plans", - Solovyov is angry over words that "everything is going according to our plan".

And he is complaining that nuclear weapons were not used when Ukraine entered the Kursk region of ruzzia.

In the end, they conclude that they must trust their "Supreme Leader". But they don't seem that convinced anymore.

🤡"Poles, Estonians and Latvians originated from earthworms". - Russian MP Milonov.

He added that "Russians, Belarusians and our allied friends are God's creatures.

So speaks the Russian toad.

The President of Finland proposed to kick rogue countries out of the UN Security Council.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb called for changing the system in which one state can block decisions of the UN Security Council and expanding its membership. Stubb also proposed suspending the membership of any country waging an "illegal war" such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Next week, the UN General Assembly will be held in New York. It will discuss the composition of the Security Council and Stubb intends to add his voice to calls for its reform, Reuters reports. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke about the need for change in accordance with the "realities of today" in May.

Stubb intends to propose to the General Assembly to increase the number of permanent members of the Security Council from five to 10, including one country from Latin America, two from Africa and two from Asia. At the same time, "no country should have the right of veto" in the Security Council, and anyone who is waging an illegal war should be excluded from it, "as Russia is now doing in Ukraine," the president said in an interview with Reuters.

The permanent members are the United Kingdom, China, Russia, the United States and France. Their membership was approved by the UN Charter in 1945: they were allies (and victors) in World War II, and are also the only officially recognized "powers with nuclear weapons." Each of the permanent members has the right of veto, which is why, in particular, the UN cannot influence the events in Ukraine in any way, except for the adoption of resolutions. Several such documents condemning Russia's actions were adopted by the General Assembly, including immediately after the invasion, but the Kremlin continues to wage a war of aggression.

I wish to point out that Russia's membership was not guaranteed by the UN Charter. The Soviet Union's was. The Soviet Union no longer exists.

The video was too big. Sorry.

The M2A2 Bradley saved its crew after two hits from a Kornet ATGM in the Donetsk oblast

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Eternal Memory

Ukrainian Nina Pashkevich, 47-year-old weightlifter, coach, and army sniper, was killed in action in the Donetsk Oblast

She had won the Ukrainian Weightlifting Championship in April 2024, adding to collection of nearly 100 sports awards.

🕯️

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