"There will be no Minsk-3. Russia's goal is the entire Left Bank" – Bondarenko
Ukraine should no longer hope to sign Minsk-type agreements with Russia.
This was stated by Kyiv political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko, who has left the country, in a conversation with Ukrainian journalist Alexander Shelest, who is recognized as a foreign agent by Russia, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"There won't be a Minsk-3. Because Minsk proposed a compromise. Moreover, Minsk, especially Minsk-2, proposed an option whereby the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as they called themselves, would return to Ukraine with autonomous rights. That was a compromise. That's not the issue now. The discussion now is exclusively about territorial concessions for Ukraine," Bondarenko noted.
He stressed that Russia does not allow the transfer of any territories to Ukraine at all.
The political scientist added that Russia had previously not ruled out a freeze along the line of contact, but then tightened its demands, demanding the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the part of the DPR that remains under Kyiv control, guaranteeing a freeze in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in return.
"Ukraine refused and started saying, 'No, no, let's just freeze the line of contact.' Russia is raising the stakes again. Now Ukraine is starting to doubt whether it can hold onto Donbas. It's starting to timidly ask, 'What were you proposing two months ago?' Now they're saying, 'No, we're moving forward now.' Russia is saying, informally, through informal channels, that Left-Bank Ukraine, at the very least, is Russia's target," Bondarenko concluded.
English version :: Read in English: "There will be no Minsk-3. Russia's goal is the entire Left Bank" – Bondarenko