Russia advises Zelenskyy to withdraw troops from Donetsk & Luhansk and recognize Crimea

A top Russian lawmaker has asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to retreat from Donbas, recognize the status of Crimea as well as give up aspirations to join NATO. Speaker of the State Duma (lower house) of the Kremlin Vyacheslav Volodin, on Saturday, said that Ukraine needs to stop fighting in the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk if it wants the ongoing war to end. Moscow annexed nearly 3/4th of the whole Donbas region in 2014 and established proxy leaders. Now as its invasion continues for day 53, military experts suggest that the Kremlin is mulling occupying all of the regions.

Meanwhile, the Russian lawmaker said that Ukraine should also “fix on contractual basis obligations to recognize Crimea.” In a telegram post, he ‘advised’ Zelenskyy to adopt a non-bloc status of Ukraine, as well as to denazify and demilitarize the country. It is worth noting that recently Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymytro Kuleba had replied to Russia’s rhetorical demands  by quipping, “It is very crazy, sometimes not even they can explain what they are referring to.” 

Volodin said, "If Zelensky is thinking about the citizens of Ukraine, he must immediately make the following decisions.  First. Withdraw troops from the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Second. Fix on a contractual basis obligations to recognize Crimea and the non-bloc status of Ukraine, as well as to denazify and demilitarize the country. 
It won't work otherwise." 

A nuclear war ?

On February 24, Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered an unforeseen military operation in Ukraine, accusing the erstwhile Soviet state of threatening the safety and security of the Russian Federation. Parallelly, he also accused the Volodymyr Zelenskyy administration of clandestinely building a plutonium-based dirty bomb. It has been seven weeks since then and now, is a complete opposite narrative, Zelenskyy has warned the world against a potential Russian nuclear attack. 

In the latest development, the UK Defense Ministry said that Russia still aims to make Ukraine abandon its Euro-Atlantic orientation and assert its dominance in the region. it said, "although offensive shifts to eastern Ukraine, Russia’s ultimate goal hasn't changed." The war that started in February has enetered day 53 on Sunday with no ceasefire in sight. 

(Image: AP)