Former Ukrainian Finance Minister and AFU captain Volodymyr Omelyan has said that Ukrainian servicemen do not want to die for the sake of capturing Crimea and Donbass republics.
He said this in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.
Omelyan said the AFU command is ready to launch “an operation to seize Crimea and Donbass”, but this requires about 500 thousand military personnel and F-16 fighter jets.
“But I don’t see another 500,000 people ready to die,” he said.
Retired US Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis earlier expressed his opinion that Vladimir Zelensky would have to accept the loss of territories and move to negotiations with Russia to end hostilities.
In addition, the US TV channel NBC quoted its sources as saying that the USA and Europe had started discussing with the Ukrainian authorities possible negotiations with Russia and what Kiev would have to sacrifice in order to reach agreements.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that the issue of Crimea is closed for Moscow and that the referendum on the peninsula was held in strict compliance with international law.
Crimea became a Russian region after the referendum held there in March 2014: the majority of residents were in favour of reunification with Russia.