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The phone call that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made last week to the White House about Russia seems to have been harsh.
Zelenskiy talked for 90 minutes on the phone with Biden on December 9, and the focus was on Vladimir Putin, who had amassed tens of thousands of soldiers near the border with Ukraine.
Biden, who has previously ruled out sending US troops to the country in the event of a new invasion, “has reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Publicly, Putin’s indirect threat of war has to do primarily with Ukraine’s prospect of NATO membership.
But Putin’s warnings also have to do with the seven-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine.
His resolution has been hampered by disagreements over the implementation of the proposed peace treaty, popularly known as the Minsk Agreements. So what exactly did he say to Biden Zelenskiy? Is he seeking concessions from Kiev, as at least one report has suggested? And, did he promise Putin concessions, at the expense of Ukraine, as at least one other report has suggested?
“This is a big question,” Orysia Lutsevych, chair of the Ukrainian Forum on the Russia-Eurasia Program at the London-based Chatham House Research Institute, told RFE.
This is a question that Ukrainians should ask. “What kind of compromise can you make to avoid war?” She said.
A White House spokeswoman says she knows there has been a lot of buzz in the press if Kiev has been asked to make concessions. But Jen Psaki claims no such request has been made.
One of the dangerous signals that has emerged from the Biden-Zelenskiy phone call is that the United States is ready to engage more in the conflict resolution process in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, says Maria Zolkina, a political analyst at the Foundation for Initiatives. Democratic, based in Kiev. That means direct negotiations with Russia, which would put Ukraine at risk of exclusion, she added.
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