Heading towards World War III?

High-profile Ukrainian presidential adviser Alexey Arestovich has resorted to obscene language to criticize those in the West urging Kiev to cede part of the country’s territory to Russia for the sake of peace.

“Go f**k yourselves with such proposals, you dumb f**ks, to trade Ukrainian territory a little bit! Are you f**king crazy? Our children are dying, soldiers are stopping shells with their own bodies, and they are telling us how to sacrifice our territories. This will never happen,” he insisted in an interview on Wednesday.

Arestovich criticized the logic of “bleating” voices encouraging Ukraine “to curb its appetite” and to give Russia the territories it supposedly wants, as this would allow Kiev to “establish a comprehensive peace and to return to business as usual.”

Another adviser of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mikhail Podoliak, took to Telegram on Wednesday to address the “pro-Russian lobbyists in Europe.”

“We do not sell our citizens, territories or sovereignty. This is a clear red line. Ukrainian society has paid a terrible price and will not allow anyone to even take a step in this direction – no government and no country,” Podoliak said.

While no one wants a long military action or a food crisis, “the shortest way to end the war is with weapons, sanctions and financial assistance to Ukraine,” he argued.

“The Ukrainians defended Kiev, liberated three regions and are completing the liberation of the fourth. Today, the same people offer us to give Russia the east and the south. Thanks for the advice, but we'll probably take up arms,” the adviser said.

The statements from Arestovich and Podoliak come after former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday. Kissinger urged Ukraine to make peace quickly, warning that if the conflict is not resolved within two months, Russia may become a “permanent ally” of China in its stand-off with the US.

President Volodymyr Zelensky also criticized Kissinger, calling him out by name, while speaking in more polite terms than Arestovich, saying the American statesman “emerged” from the long gone past and spoke “as if it is 1938 and not 2022. And he thought he was talking to an audience in Munich of that time and not Davos.”

He was apparently referring to the Munich Agreement, a deal that the UK and France made with Axis powers Germany and Italy in 1938, in which the Nazis were given a free hand to invade Czechoslovakia. Comparing modern Russia with Nazi Germany is a favorite rhetorical device of many Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine has insisted that it will not agree to any peace proposals that do not respect its pre-2014 borders.

Moscow has made it clear that the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the status of Crimea as a Russian region, are not up for discussion.

www.rt.com/russia/556103-arestovich-territories-concessions-response

Russian troops have taken over the town of Liman in the northern Donetsk region, the government in Kiev revealed, on Thursday evening. Ukrainian forces have reportedly withdrawn west-southwest towards Slavyansk.

“We have lost the town of Liman,” Alexey Arestovich, a key adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, admitted in a livestream on Thursday.

Though Arestovich cited “unconfirmed reports,” Russian military correspondent Alexander Kots posted a video of Russian troops in the city shortly thereafter, captioned “Liman is ours.” Ukrainian troops “fled” west and southwest, Kots added, while covering their retreat with artillery fire.

The storming of Liman lasted less than a week, with Russian forces entering the city on May 23. There were unconfirmed reports, on Telegram channels, that as many as 500 Ukrainian troops had surrendered. By Wednesday, three quarters of Liman was allegedly under Russian control, with the remaining Ukrainian troops said to be fortifying the industrial zone on the southwestern edge of town.

However, an unverified video posted on TikTok on Wednesday purported to show a group of Ukrainian soldiers clinging to an armored vehicle driving at high speed away from the town, amid an artillery bombardment.

www.rt.com/russia/556164-liman-arestovich-loss-defeat-ukraine

Ukrainian troops could withdraw from the big eastern city of Severodonetsk, which Russian forces are close to surrounding, an official there says.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk, said Russians were in part of the city. "It is possible that in order not to be surrounded, they will have to leave."

Russia has made seizing the whole eastern Donbas region a key war aim.

Ukraine is pleading for long-range weaponry to resist Russia's advance, but the US has so far not offered it.

On Friday UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Ukraine needed long-range multiple-launch rocket systems.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61613479

As early as next week, the Biden administration could announce an escalation in the weapons supply to Ukraine, possibly allowing deliveries of MLRS and HIMARS long-range multiple rocket launchers, CNN reported on Thursday, citing multiple officials.

The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) are two versions of US-made rocket artillery systems that can mostly fire the same types of rockets.

Depending on the projectile used, they can have a range of up to 500km, though the more affordable munitions offer an effective firing range of 32 to 70km. The main difference is that the MLRS is a heavier tracked system that carries twice the number of rockets as the wheeled truck-mounted HIMARS.

Ukrainian officials have listed both systems among the weapons they want the US and its allies to donate to their fight against Russia. Kiev has Soviet Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers in its arsenal, but says the American systems would give them an advantage on the battlefield.

According to CNN sources, the Biden administration has been reluctant to supply rocket artillery due to concerns that Kiev could use the systems to attack targets inside Russia. A number of shellings and helicopter raids have targeted Russian territory in the past several weeks, which Moscow blamed on the Ukrainian side.

Officials in Washington are reportedly concerned that Moscow would perceive the delivery of the MLRS and HIMARS, with their potential to fire tactical ballistic missiles, as a major provocation. There are also concerns that the weapon systems would have to come from the US’ own inventory, which is limited, CNN sources said.

Pentagon officials met with the CEO of Lockheed Martin to discuss the potential ramping up of production of the MLRS, one source said. The UK has said it considered supplying the same rocket artillery systems from its own stockpile, but wanted to do so in conjunction with the US, the report added.

Officials in Kiev and pro-Ukraine voices in the US say the American launchers would turn the tide for the Ukrainian forces. “I think it could be a gamechanger, to be honest with you,” Representative Jason Crow told CNN.

Kiev has been losing territory recently and is now saying that things look bad for it in the eastern region of Donbass. This week, the town of Liman, a major stronghold of Ukrainian troops and a key railroad juncture, was captured by Russian and allied forces.

www.rt.com/news/556179-us-rocket-artillery-ukraine

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger turned 99 on Friday and Ukrainian government-linked activists marked the occasion by adding his name to their Mirotvorets (‘Peacemaker’) website. Labeled “an accomplice in the crimes of the Russian authorities,” Kissinger was blacklisted after he called for a negotiated peace between Kiev and Moscow and a return to the pre-February status quo.

Created in 2014, the Mirotvorets website – whose homepage features a grizzly mosaic of dead Russian soldiers – is a publicly searchable database of what it calls “pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.” These range from members of the Russian military to Western politicians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who has opposed sanctioning Russian oil and gas. It is commonly believed that Mirotvorets is controlled by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Kissinger is accused by Mirotvorets of “spreading narratives of Russian-fascist propaganda and blackmail… in exchange for the truncation of Ukrainian territory.” These charges make him “an accomplice in the crimes of the Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens,” his entry continues.

Earlier this week, Kissinger told attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that a peace deal must be reached between Kiev and Moscow in the coming months, lest the conflict in Ukraine spiral into a global war between NATO and Russia. To do this, Kissinger said that Ukraine must at least accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Kissinger is a prominent advocate of the realpolitik school of international relations, which puts the practical interests of nations before their ideological stances. As President Nixon’s secretary of state, he spearheaded the US’ diplomatic outreach to China during the 1970s, which was aimed at preventing Beijing from allying itself with Soviet Russia.

In his Davos speech, Kissinger recalled that eight years ago, when the Ukrainian crisis was launched with an armed coup in Kiev, he advocated for Ukraine to become a neutral state and a “bridge between Russia and Europe rather than… a frontline of groupings within Europe.”

While US and NATO leaders have since discarded this advice and poured an unprecedented numbers of troops and weapons into Eastern Europe since the start of Russia’s military operation in February, Kissinger urged Western leaders to remember that “Russia has for 400 years been an essential part of Europe,” and should not be “driven into a permanent alliance with China” – a position that somewhat mirrors his 1970s stance on China.

Kissinger’s call for negotiations and concessions was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who declared in his own Davos speech on Wednesday that “Ukraine will fight until it regains all its territories.” However, Zelensky also told world leaders this week that “we may try and go the diplomatic way” with Russia, “unless it is too late.”

“The Ukrainian leadership constantly makes statements that contradict each other, which makes it impossible to fully understand its intentions and whether it is ready to take a sober approach and acknowledge the real state of affairs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on Friday.

www.rt.com/russia/556201-kissinger-birthday-ukraine-enemies-list

Ukraine is facing a complete loss of its sovereignty and, potentially, a merger with Poland, former President Viktor Yanukovych has warned. The ex-president, who was ousted in the 2014 Maidan coup, released an extensive address on Friday in which he shared his thoughts about the roots of the ongoing turmoil and the potential fate of the country.

The current role of Ukraine as an instrument against Russia was outlined by the collective West long before the conflict between Moscow and Kiev broke out in late February, the ex-president believes.

“In 2014 already, Ukraine was designated by certain Western countries as a territory from which a total weakening of Russia should begin. Precisely as a territory, and not as an independent state, not as people wishing to live in peace with all its neighbors, not excluding Russia,” Yanukovych stated.

The current conflict may bring fatal consequences for the country, he went on. Ukraine risks not only losing vast territories “in its south and east” but also a “complete destruction” of its sovereignty, Yanukovych believes.

The threat stems not only from the military conflict itself but also the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to cozy up to the country's western neighbor Poland. Earlier this month, Polish President Andrzej Duda and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky expressed hopes that the two countries would “no longer have a border” between them, while Kiev announced plans to grant special legal status to Polish citizens.

The strengthening ties will not bring Ukraine’s purported “European dream” any closer, but rather threatens a “merger” with Poland, Yanukovych warned.

www.rt.com/russia/556220-ukraine-poland-merger-yanukovich

Former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko tried to cross the border into Poland on Friday, Ukrainian media reported citing the state customs service sources. Volodymyr Zelensky’s predecessor is currently facing treason charges in Kiev.

Poroshenko showed up at the Rava-Ruska crossing, west of Lvov, in his Range Rover SUV on Friday evening, Ukrainian National News (UNN) and Ukrainskaya Pravda said, citing sources at the State Customs Service of Ukraine. The border guards stationed there reportedly did not want to take responsibility for deciding whether to let him leave the country. However, there was no official confirmation from the border service.

Photos posted on Telegram showed someone looking like Poroshenko talking with several customs agents.

“This is a political order that looks disgusting,” Ukrainian politician Irina Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram, noting that Poroshenko was prevented from leaving the country even though he had a valid travel letter from the parliament to attend the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Lithuania.

Poroshenko is technically still a member of the Ukrainian parliament. In December 2021, the current government charged him with treason in the alleged scheme to buy coal from the Donbass separatists in 2014-15. He traveled to Turkey as the charges were announced, but made a show of returning to Kiev in January. A court then refused the government’s request to put him in jail, or even under house arrest.

Known as the “Chocolate King,” thanks to his ownership of the candy giant Roshen, Poroshenko had accumulated a substantial business empire in Ukraine during the 1990s, including shipyards and a TV channel. The TV channel, he would later tell the Washington Post, played a key role in the February 2014 Maidan uprising that ousted the elected President Viktor Yanukovich.

Poroshenko, who previously did brief stints as trade and foreign minister under governments led by politicians from western Ukraine, found himself the establishment candidate in the May 2014 presidential election. As president, he led the “anti-terrorist operation” to crush the Donbass separatists by force in the summer of 2014 and again in early 2015. Both attempts ended in disaster for the Ukrainian military, with Kiev agreeing to a ceasefire mediated in Minsk. Beset by scandals, Poroshenko lost the 2019 re-election bid in a landslide to Zelensky, who ran on a peace platform.

www.rt.com/russia/556224-ukraine-poroshenko-poland-border