Attempts by Western countries to convince Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow after a series of major military victories over invading Russian forces are "bizarre" and effectively ask that Kyiv capitulate to the losing side, according to a key adviser to the Ukrainian president.
"When you have the initiative on the battlefield, it's a little strange to receive proposals like: 'You will not be able to do everything by military means anyway, you need to negotiate,'" AFP on November 20 quoted adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak as saying.
Such talks would mean that the country "that recovers its territories, must capitulate to the country that is losing."
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Meanwhile, Ukraine has begun voluntary evacuations of residents of areas of the southern Kherson and Mykolayiv regions recently liberated from Russian occupation.
Residents who choose to evacuate at the state's expense will receive shelter in the city of Kryviy Rih in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region or other western regions of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's minister for the reintegration of the Russian-occupied territories, said on November 19.
Podolyak also told the French news agency that Moscow had not made "any direct proposal" to Kyiv regarding peace talks, and was instead passing suggestions regarding negotiations and a possible cease-fire through intermediaries.
"Russia doesn't want negotiations. Russia is conducting a communication campaign called 'negotiations'" in an attempt to stall for time, Podolyak said. "In the meantime, [Russia] would train its mobilized forces, find additional weapons...and fortify its positions."
Podolyak said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the war against Ukraine in February, still believes despite recent territorial losses in southern and eastern Ukraine that "he can destroy Ukraine, this is his obsession." Allowing Moscow a break in fighting now, he added, would threaten to "create a frozen conflict in the middle of Europe."
The United States has reportedly pressured Ukraine to be open to peace talks with Russia, with U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley saying on November 16 that while the support of Washington and other Western partners for Kyiv had not diminished, recent Ukrainian battlefield successes could put Kyiv in a better bargaining position.
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine, to include...[Russian-occupied] Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily," Milley said. "There may be a political solution where, politically, the Russians withdraw, that's possible.
"You want to negotiate from a position of strength. Russia right now is on its back," he added.
The comments raised concerns that Washington may be seeking to scale back Kyiv's goals of recapturing all territory occupied by Russia, including the Crimean Peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014.
White House national-security spokesman John Kirby stressed on November 18 that the United States was not trying to force Kyiv to hold talks or cede territory.
Kirby added that only Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "gets to determine if and when he's ready for negotiations and what those negotiations look like."
During a video speech to the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on November 18, Zelenskiy said that Russia was looking for an opportunity to agree to a "short truce" in order to replenish it forces.
"Any voiced ideas of our land's concessions or of our sovereignty cannot be called peace," Zelenskiy said. "Immoral compromises will lead to new blood."
In October, shortly after Russia announced the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Luhansk after referendums that were considered shams by the international community, Zelenskiy signed a decree that said negotiations with Russia were impossible as long as Putin remained president.
Since then, Ukraine has made significant gains in the partly occupied regions, particularly in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.
The Russian authorities have previously stated that they are ready for negotiations , but are not ready to discuss the fate of Ukraine's occupied territories.
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy said that Russia's military had fired some 4,700 missiles at targets in Ukraine since launching its invasion on February 24.
"Hundreds of our cities have been practically burned down, thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been deported to Russia," Zelenskiy said on November 20 in a video message to the International Organization of French-speaking Countries, whose representatives were meeting in Djerba, Tunisia.
On November 19, Ukraine restored train service to the newly recaptured southern city of Kherson, and Ukrainian forces continued to face fierce fighting in the eastern Donbas, comprising the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Russian troops have intensified their push on several fronts.
Russia is reportedly repositioning some of its forces to bolster its defenses around the Zaporizhzhya region cities of Zaporizhzhya and Melitopol, as well as increasing the intensity of fighting in the Donbas.