Russia aims to split Ukraine in two, as North and South Korea did, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence commander, who promised “complete” guerilla warfare to prevent the country’s division.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has requested the West to provide Ukraine with tanks, planes, and missiles to aid in the fight against Russian soldiers, which the Kyiv government claims are increasingly targeting fuel and food depots.
Meanwhile, US authorities worked to clarify remarks made by US President Joe Biden on Saturday, in which he declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” in a furious address in Poland.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Jerusalem that Biden had merely meant that Putin could not be “empowered to conduct war” against Ukraine or anyone else.
After failing to conquer any major Ukrainian city after more than four weeks of warfare, Russia signaled on Friday that it will focus on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed rebels have been fighting the Ukrainian army for the past eight years.
A local leader in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic suggested on Sunday that a referendum on joining Russia could be held shortly, similar to what happened in Crimea when Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
Crimeans overwhelmingly opted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, a decision that was largely ignored by the rest of the world.
“In truth, it is an attempt to divide Ukraine into North and South Korea,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said in a statement, referring to Korea’s partition after WWII.
He expected that the Ukrainian army would push Russian forces back.
“In addition, the season of a full-fledged Ukrainian guerilla campaign is about to commence. The Russians will then be faced with only one viable option: how to survive “he stated
STRONG ARMOUR
Moscow claims that the objectives of what Putin refers to as a “special military operation” are to demilitarize and “denazify” its neighbor. This is being portrayed by Ukraine and its Western supporters as a pretext for an unprovoked invasion.
The invasion has wreaked havoc on multiple Ukrainian cities, triggered a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and displaced an estimated ten million people, or roughly a quarter of the country’s population.
On Saturday, Zelensky delivered a late-night televised address in which he demanded that Western nations hand over military gear that was “gathering dust” in stockpiles, claiming that his country only need 1% of NATO’s aircraft and 1% of its tanks.
So far, Western countries have provided Ukraine with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as small guns and protective gear, but no heavy amour or planes.
“We’ve been waiting for 31 days. Who controls the Euro-Atlantic community? Is Moscow really still Moscow due to fear of retaliation?” According to Zelensky, Western politicians are holding back on supplies because they are afraid of Russia.
According to Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko, Russia has begun destroying Ukrainian fuel and food storage facilities, implying that the government would have to disperse both inventories in the near future.
Russian forces looked to be focusing their efforts on surrounding Ukrainian troops directly facing rebel regions in the east, according to the British Ministry of Defense’s latest military assessment.
“The battlefield in northern Ukraine remains mainly stagnant,” the ministry said, “with local Ukrainian counterattacks thwarting Russian attempts to reorganize their forces.”
STRUGGLE IN HISTORY
Biden was chastised for his impromptu remarks at a speech in Warsaw, in which he attempted to depict the war as part of a long struggle for democratic values.
Biden remarked of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” He previously referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “butcher.”
On Twitter, veteran US diplomat Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the remarks made “a perilous situation even more deadly.”
Officials from the United States attempted to walk back the president’s remarks, claiming that they were not a call for Putin’s removal, but rather that he should not be allowed to wield authority over his neighbors or the area.
Secretary of State Blinken of the United States agreed. “As you know, and as you have heard us say many times, we do not have a regime change policy in Russia – or anyplace else,” he said in Jerusalem.
The UN has confirmed 1,104 civilian deaths and 1,754 injuries in Ukraine, but the true toll is likely to be higher. According to Ukraine, 139 children have been murdered and more than 205 have been injured so far in the fighting.
On Sunday, Ukraine and Russia agreed on two “humanitarian corridors” to evacuate residents from frontline areas, including the ability to escape by private automobile from Mariupol in the south, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
The surrounded port, which lies between Russian-annexed Crimea and eastern territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels, has been ravaged by weeks of severe bombing, forcing thousands of civilians to seek refuge in basements with limited access to water, food, medicine, and electricity.
