All Episodes

January 11, 2025 56 mins
In today's war diary, Nikolai Feldman and Alexey Arestovich discussed the main news on the 1048th day of war:

➤ 00:00 Interview of the President of Ukraine with Lex Fridman: what audience did Zelensky address?
➤ 03:39 Zelensky's position on the types of security guarantees for Ukraine and the ceasefire.
➤ 07:20 The attitude of the President of Ukraine to the Russian language, Putin and the Russian people. Zelensky - the unbending leader of the unbending Ukraine?
➤ 13:04 President's unsuccessful message: 4 years of Trump - an insignificant time to achieve peace for Ukraine? Additional information from the interview can be found in the original audio track on YouTube.
➤ 15:25 French President Macron called on Ukraine to hold realistic discussions. If the negotiations are disrupted by Ukraine, what awaits us?
➤ 21:15 In an interview with Lex Fridman, Zelensky did not recognize corruption in Ukraine. Analysis of Zelensky's position.
➤ 26:35 Paris story from President Zelensky versus the words of Bohdan in Gordon: "they promised one thing, did nothing."
➤ 31:30 Merkel and Arestovich's recollections of the Minsk agreements. Why did the Ukrainian government drag out the time for so long, not fulfilling the agreements? - Putin's claims coincided with Ukraine's claims to the EU and NATO.
➤ 40:40 The key to the current situation is the Ukrainian government's fear of radicals.
➤ 41:45 Preparing Ukraine for war: who forced the country to sell weapons since 1991, in order to then buy them back at a higher price at the beginning of Russia's large-scale invasion in 2022?
➤ 47:37 What could Ukraine have done in 4 years of Trump's rule to avoid a second round of war with Russia? How does the Ukrainian government use its super powers during the war?

Olexiy Arestovych (Kiev): Advisor to the Office of Ukraine President : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleksiy_Arestovych
Official channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjWy2g76QZf7QLEwx4cB46g

Nikolay Feldman - Ukranian journalist, social researcher, blogger.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everybody, This is Project Alpha. My name is Nicolai Feldman.
Alex Aristovigius with us live. It is word Diary, the
first one in this year. Hello Alexi, good evening and
merry Christmas. It is Christmas, right, It's Orthodox Christmas. It's

(00:37):
difficult to navigate between all these calendars and different Christmases.
But overall, alright, Lex Friedman is number one or two.
We have a ton of questions to discuss today. I
did not sleep much last night. I watched the whole
interview that Sidanski gave to Lex and perhaps there will

(00:57):
be a lot of argument to carry over that conversation.
It's not exactly clear which audience is Vladimir Zelensky trying
to influence with this interview. I have a feeling that
he's not exactly sure which audience is he addressing to
or is it not so in your opinion, what audience
was he target? Nikolay, he's working on the inner audience,

(01:21):
on the Ukrainian audience, and also I mean exclusively, exclusively,
and also on the position that is designed to defend
the opinion of these audience and Zelensky's opinion in front
of Trump mask and their audience. The problem is that
I think this audience for Zelensky is only maybe thirty
percent in Ukraine want more. I don't understand Alexei. Why

(01:45):
does he have to talk to Lex Friedman in order
to address his inner audience? Well, Nikolay, Lex Friedman is
the second popular blogger in the US among the right electorate.
He is also a personal friend of Elon Musk and
a whole other list of big, well known people, and

(02:07):
it is easier to communicate a lot of things through
that figure. So what I think is a key takeaway
here is that it is an opinion of maybe twenty
five thirty percent of Ukrainians. What about the rest? How
about the seventy And what's curious, Nikolay, is that the
voices of those seventy are subdued by very loud screaming

(02:32):
of the thirty percent, and also the position of government power,
which is continually repressing everybody who is not sharing their
point of view. And the second interesting point is that
the remaining seventy percent of Ukrainians still continue to hold
the opinion of Zelensky and his election program on which

(02:54):
he came to power, and the thirty percent were actually
criticizing him initially, and now he completely flew flopped on
that and he's basically again the proponent of the topic
of army speech and faith two point zero. So what
about the seventy percent that initially supported him. The key
word for this year is bussification, putting people in buses

(03:16):
in Ukraine and sending them to front today. And you know,
I would understand if there would not be somebody like
us and maybe a few other bloggers who are talking
about this problem openly, because we have only open opinion
to share. And he has one answer to us. You

(03:36):
are a spy. You are all Moscow spies. Let's put
you in a bus and send you to die in
the groves on the front, all right, Like say, for me,
it is very important that Zelensky trying to influence Trump
in future discussions, negotiations that will happen. We understand they

(03:56):
will at some point. Zelenski still has no solution that
he offers. It appears to me that he is trying
to dump the sack with potatoes on the Trump's territory
and leave him with solving this problem the way he
sees fit. And we're just telling you that you will
also have to convince us to make sure that we

(04:17):
like your decision. It seems to me to be a
very infantile position, and I wonder if Zelenski understands that
this is how he perceived in the United States after
this speech. Well, Nikolay, I think I approximately understand what
he knows and what he intends. He had a position.
His position is that first, you need to provide certain guarantees,
real guarantees to Ukraine, which Biden administration failed to provide.

(04:41):
We are not exactly sure Zelenski's opinion that Trump will
be able to provide EU definitely isn't capable to provide that,
you scoundrels deceived us many times already. Second, we need
a guarantee in a form of a lot of arms.
You need to provide us with a stockpile of weapons.
A third point is we need a guarantee in a

(05:02):
form of joining NATO, and zero point four is an
invitation to European Union. So President Zelenski sees four kinds
of guarantees and he does have a position. The other
question would be how realistic this position is well understandablele say,
even Friedman in this interview is saying that this is unrealistic.
Tomorrow Trump leaves NATO and what And the president doesn't

(05:25):
have an answer to that question, right, he doesn't have
an answer. They think only non binary. We have an
option A, there is no option B. And this is
a position that he stated. I see that this position
is supported by the so called patriotic speakers in Ukraine,
who are mostly leaning towards army speech and faith slogan.

(05:52):
But the goal of every communication is a reaction to
that communication. Right, So when Zelenski is making these statements,
what is he going for? Can he achieve with that?
What can he achieve when he says that I do
not respect Putin and the whole Russian people? And on
the next thesis he says is that we are planning
to sign on the twenty fifth peace traate with him.

(06:13):
So Puttin is one the mort he's an old idiot,
but we still want to sign a peace treaty. Russian
people are orcs and scoundrels, but we will definitely sign
true records with them. Alex say, well, it's not guaranteed
about peace. Right, It's interesting to see how will Putin
treat that and what will American society. Say about that, Nikolai,

(06:36):
I can give you an example. Imagine you and I world.
We had six or ten years of argument. Then Roman
Pope comes over and wants to pacify us, and we decide, okay,
let's sit down at the table. Roman Pope says, bless
your children, let's be peaceful in the coming twenty twenty five.
I say, yes, of course, take one of the salid
balls and put it on your head. Pope says, well, wait, wait,

(06:59):
the action actually goes against the intent of our discussion here,
to which I say, no, this is exactly designed to
help this conversation going. And then I take additional glass
of champagne and poured under your shirt while cussing and
screaming at you. Right, Alexei, better take a hot tea, right,

(07:22):
And that's what I'm saying based on all that, of course,
will be invited in Tornado, given all weapons and supported
by everybody. Right, this is our position in brief, All right, Alexei.
He says that he doesn't respect Russian language and Russian people,
so he also does not separate Russians Russian people from
Russian government. It is all mixed as one bowl of porridge.

(07:46):
In his head. Right, I have a question if an
Israel they treated Arabs and Arabic language in that fashion
because of the issues and conflicts between the governments and
the countries of adjacent to his reel the cities countries, Nikolai,
I'll tell you more. All negotiations and all the behind

(08:06):
the scenes negotiations in Zelensky's office were always have always
been conducted in Russian. All the communications there are conducted
in Russian. So here we have a person coming out
and saying that I have no respect to the language
that I grew up speaking. I have no respect to
the language of my mother. Right meantime, I'm sitting watching

(08:27):
that and remembering that I have not seen a single
meeting conducted in Ukrainian in his office, and I spent
two and a half years there, and pretty remarkable years. Right.
And when people are saying, no, he was different back
then and now he changed, it is not so. Trust me,
I know for a fact it is not so. So
this is just pretending. This is posing and posturing in

(08:52):
front of the camera. And the reasons are first, I
like the role. He likes the role, the role of
the leader who is suffering for his nation who is
going to fight to the end. And second is his
fear to face the radicals, because right now, especially with
this war going, there are a lot of radically motivated

(09:12):
military servicemen. If we go back to the ninth of
December of twenty nineteen, he was afraid to execute the
Parish Accords, although the situation back then was much milder.
There were maybe nine hundred radicals running around the government
quarters and they were protected. The quarters were protected by
seventeen thousand of National Guard. But today these radicals are

(09:33):
presented by brigades with some heavy equipment. So I don't
think he is not afraid of them. And third, I
think he's still hoping that with his stubbornness he will
eventually prevail somehow, but this is not how it works.
He will not get one. First, do not deceive people.
If you speak Russian in your life, it is bs

(09:55):
to say that you do not accept Russian language. Second,
when you are afraid of radicals, you need to understand
that the politics is always to be conducted in the
interests of majority. And when you have such a big
split between seventy and thirty percent, you need to play two.
Seventy percent. They're the ones who voted for you, They're

(10:16):
the ones who gave you the mandate, and this is
the key part of your people. And with those radicalized
thirty you need to find common language, and you need
to weave them into the common good, perhaps telling them
on some things that no, this is not going to happen,
but on the others, perhaps supporting them and using them to,
for example, fortify the enforcement agencies of the country. This

(10:37):
is how the leader of one hundred percent of Ukrainians
would do. I've seen in this interview a lot of
other interesting things. I see a very negative reception of
this interview by the group of Americans who were supposed
to be targeted this interview. For the second day, my
phone is ringing and they are let me formulate it better.

(11:01):
The very different marks grades given to this interview being
very delicate from the praises sung by the patriotic Ukrainians
at home. That's why in this interview I did not
see the president of seventy percent of Ukrainians or one
hundred percent of Ukrainians. I saw, like Porshanka, the president
of thirty percent army speech faith, who will be representing

(11:23):
the rest of the country. So it was an interesting interview.
It was calculated to become a part of a presidential campaign.
So he goes to the election as unwavering leader of
unbent Ukraine and he's working in the same image that
he had since the beginning of March of twenty two.
Since that time, the situation changed dramatically many times. It

(11:46):
is very different. And if you're a smart politician, even
if you are following the same goals, you would be
looking for different ways to get there, perhaps specifically looking
at the American audience. If you're giving this interview for
the English speaking audience, an American audis and found a
lot of incongruences in that, not even talking about an
attempt to be liked by Trump administration that was made

(12:07):
in the most clumsy fashion. I don't know who consulted
him on this, but this is a very non Trump
style of communication. He does not appreciate when he's dumped
the bag of hot potatoes on his territory and basically
told to go figure it out and we'll see for
like it. And also in Trump's team, there are a

(12:28):
lot of people who, being very delicate here, have a
very specific opinion about Ukraine about Zelensky government, and you
need to be very careful talking to them, not to
push them away completely, because Zelenskin his speech basically reaffirmed
all the suspicions and all their fears. They see a

(12:51):
stubborn leader who is representing stubborn people who do not
want to do anything with Trump's proposal to end this war.
And American point of view on the says, Okay, we
have a proposition, but you refuse it, and then you
demand more arms, and you demand us to continue helping you.
How do we understand that, Alex say, one of the

(13:12):
things that really piqued my interest is that four years
of Trump is an insignificant time to procure peace in Ukraine.
And this is a very strong statement actually, that is
basically saying that your Trump in power, Trump is of
no consequence to us. It is not enough for us,

(13:32):
because after that you will be gone and whatever you
to do, right Nikolay, the statement roughly sounds like this
an American ear that your ideas, your capabilities, and your
term in office is nothing. So he's sending this message
to the president who's going to be a second time
president who vowed to finish this war. He promised thirty

(13:54):
nine times on record to his electors that he will
finish this war. And Seynsky's a message which basically amounts
to a face lab to Donald Trump. The only worst
message would be to directly accuse him. But in this
conversation they were barely veiled some serious concerns about Trump's capabilities.

(14:16):
So that's why I'm thinking I'll give you just a
good advice in order to understand how was this interview taken.
Lex Friedman is a programmer. He deals with artificial intelligence,
doctor of science, and he made a sound track. There
is an ideal conversation. There, an ideal translation, even meeting

(14:41):
the tones of voices of Lex and Zelenski. But I
suggest you to do one interesting thing. Let me open
this interview. I'll show you here on the screen. You
will see that if you click languages, what audio tracks
can you pick? They will be English original, but the
first one above it will be English UK in parentheses.

(15:03):
Click that one. Do not click the original. It is
not the original. The actual original is the English United Kingdom.
And listen to what was actually said, and you may
change your opinion about what was actually and how it
was presented. Everything is slightly different from the second soundtrack.
At least you may create certain conclusions based on this soundtrack,

(15:30):
all right, LEXI, So to sum up that whole foreign agenda,
I want to pay attention to Macron's statement, who made
one today midday when he appealed to Ukraine to conduct
realistic discussions about the territorial questions. He also mentioned that
besides Ukrainians and only Ukrainians actually can conduct these realistic

(15:55):
discussions about their territory. He's saying that besides Ukrainians, nobody should.
So mccron is highlighting here that if there will be
no realistic positions from Ukrainians, they shouldn't be expecting it
from anybody else. They shouldn't be expecting Trump to realize
them in an autonomous mode or maybe put in figuring
things out. This is Ukraine's business. So when the framework

(16:22):
that is stated is unrealistic is beyond any criticism. It
does brush all the leaders of the world in a
wrong fashion towards Zelansky right, and to Ukraine at large.
What do you think it will lead to? For example,
twenty fifth of January comes don't know if at that
Zlansky birthday, Trump putting and Zlansky sit at the table.

(16:44):
I don't know if they will come to any conclusion,
but it appears that Zelensky indicates he would like to
be part of these negotiations, but his intent would be
to spit in the bowls of negotiators, to basically disrupt them.
What do you think we should expect? All right, Nikolay,

(17:04):
there is a ring of agreement, so to say, the
position of administration that came to power putin that wants
to finish this war on this stage in certain terms.
That's separate discussion, and then position of a you that
is being voiced by mccrolan and Schultz. There is some
formula of agreement. The only person who is disrupting this
formula of agreement is his position and those thirty percent

(17:26):
that he is relying upon twenty five thirty percent army
speech faith. Two oh. So this group does not understand
how inadequate they are. It is obvious that they were
always in a soup bubble and their own ideas were
more important for them than the actual thinking, critical thinking

(17:47):
about situations. But we can say that the further it goes,
the bigger the gap that we're observing. And I'm reading
the comments from my European and American friends who are
texting me after this interview, there is a huge disconnect.
Everybody in Europe and and States are holding their heads

(18:08):
with a big question mark above them. Why. And Macron
even took it upon himself to tell Zeedansky that, guys,
you need to prepare for these negotiations. So there is
a formula of agreement. But in order to break this
formula of agreement is to act against the plan of Europeans,
Putin's plans and trump plans. They all see this spacification

(18:30):
process differently. They do have some conflict between them, but
there is overarching general agreement that it's time to end
this war. And those people who are opposing this vector,
even if it's a Ukrainian president, they counterimpose their own
figure personally against the plans of allies, our partners and Russia.

(18:54):
This is contradiction. And okay, let's take this contradiction. Let's
take one very brave Ukraine, the thirty percent people that
support Zelansky and put them on one side of the weights,
and then we take the United States with all the
armaments and GDP and their leadership under Trump on the
other side. Of the balance. Who do you think prevails

(19:18):
and our position about Zansky's position about hoping that the
United States will realize the wrongness of their ways and
eventually will come join Ukraine on the front and will
come to tier Russia part and make it something else.
Do you think it's realistic. The other option is that no,

(19:39):
our partners have their own plans that are based on
their own calculations, and they will go forth with their plans,
which have only one roadblock on the way, the roadblock
that was giving that interview to lex and they do
have the levers to regulate that they can just close
the spickett and we get no support and our opinion

(20:00):
will change drastically. So what options? That's why I'm afraid
that the conclusion will likely be made one way. I
see it already that this conclusion has been made long
before this interview on the West, and very likely it

(20:21):
could sound something like this that, look, Vladimir Zelenski, Putin
does not want to talk to you. You do want peace, right,
you do want something good for your country. That means
that Putin needs to talk to somebody else. And that's
how it could be phrased, not with you mister Zelenski,
but he does want peace. You are for peace too,
write right, so there is only one obstacle to peace.

(20:43):
You need to make one step to the side and
goo in the shadows. And if not, then free Western press.
They are free right, so they can start running different publications.
They can do some investigative journalism. They also have friends

(21:03):
in Ukraine who can help them investigate a few things.
And we can also remember the interview of a future
possible head of the FBI who said, we need to
conduct an audio of our expenses and trenches to Ukraine
that will show us what happened with our resources that
we sent. And the key point in this interview. One

(21:29):
of the hottest topics that a lot of people are
upset about is that Zelensky refuse to acknowledge corruption in Ukraine.
He said that they don't have corruption. We've been slapping
everybody's hand and will continue doing it. But on the background,
there is an ongoing scandal about minds going from motors

(21:50):
to the front that do not shoot. And if you
dig a little deeper, you don't even need to dig much.
There is a ton more scandals that Zelensky refused. Technoledge
so on the key positions, I think he failed, and
of course none of the politicians will acknowledge that. But

(22:12):
you can look at the United Nations report that Ukraine
violates the rights of church, that throwing people in buses
is conducted in a way that violates human rights, and
also remind that there was going to be a report
of Transparency International published in June, but it never happened

(22:34):
and a lot of lobbyists wasted a lot of resources
to prevent this publication from happening, basically on the backdrop
that hey, we're fighting here for our lives. Please hold
off on the disparaging materials, but one day it may
still surface. And I think that he will not be
able to roadblock United States and Europe alone. But he

(22:59):
did make his position clear in this interview that he's
not going to give in. He will do everything to
break these plans as they are happening now, and he's
making actions for example counteroffensive and Kirsk District of Russia.
And his suggestion is that if you will really really

(23:20):
try Western allies, you can be of some use by
giving us three hundred billion dollars and a lot of arms.
It would be funny if the DNS can understood that,
it would be a similar position if the head of
some district in Kiev would be giving him these terms. Listen, President,

(23:41):
we have an opinion of thirty percent of this district
who do not like your politics. You need to give
us arms and a lot of money and do what
we ask it to. So if he got this message,
he was supposed to execute it. What other options? No, Alexi,
I will not agree with you. This is not that district.
I think that district would be Pokrovsk district. Oh right,

(24:06):
so yeah, they did, Alexei. Just to wrap it up,
they did approve a budget for Pakrovsk for beautification of
a city. Right, it's only two and a half miles,
nikolay that the war of the front line is from
the border of the city, and we seen a budget
that for defense of the city, for fortifications we designate

(24:29):
ten million, and for beautification of the city we designated
sixty million. You know, Lex was a very calm and
soft interviewer, because if he was a hard interviewer, he
would rips an scare part. That's why it was done
with Lex and not with Tucker, not with Value Tainment,

(24:51):
not with Joe Rogan, because each of those would have
ripped an scare new one, and Lex he is an ideal.
He's saying that Zelansky is a good fellow, his team
are good people. Therefore, if Patrick from Valid Tainment would
be talking with Zelenski, he would not let Zansky jump

(25:13):
off the hook. He has a very strict style. He
would bring an article to the screen, and probably a
translated article from Ukraine. Here is this is your local
media reporting on your corruption or this is international publication
reporting on a corruption Yes or no. I don't think
Zlansky would be able to handle himself well in these

(25:35):
harsher environments, because then he would be torn apart, his
position would be dismantled, and you would see the real
attitude of Ukrainian audiences to that. And now they're sitting
in some warm bath because Les presented Zelensky as a
fantastic person of a great country fighting for their own
fantastic reasons. But Lex does suffer, does hurt for the

(25:59):
pains of people. So he's just his style. It's not
a hard interview that he conducted. A good inter yer
would ask Zelansky, why did you spend ten million for
defense while spending sixty on beautification, what happened with one
hundred and fifty fifth brigade that was prepared on the
money of French partners eight hundred million euros, the one

(26:19):
that fell apart before even hit in Ukraine. And a
lot of other concrete questions which surfaced, for example, just
this week, and for which Zelensky does not have any answers.
You know, Alexi, I do want to go over these
questions that surface this week, but before this happens, I
want to ask you one more question that sends us

(26:43):
back to Paris Accords that you mentioned, and President Zelenski
mentioned directly that back then there was a story that
I even agreed with Putchin. Lex you don't know that history,
and I did make an accord with Putchin. I came
there prepared and Putin prepared that he was not ready
for this topic, and I basically did all the work

(27:04):
for him, and Putain did not contribute anything to it. Well,
he maybe did the exchange of prisoners, but as for
ceasefire and working around the new border, that never happened.
Put In promised to act and then he stopped picking
the phone. You know, Nikolay will have another witness exactly

(27:25):
I'm remembering that there was a different witness of this
conversation that Zelensky supposedly promised water to Crimea. I don't
know if there was some non public part of that
conversation that was promised, you know, Nikolay. Let's listen to
the person who was at those negotiations and who definitely

(27:49):
knows what was happening there here. Just a second, So
how did Putin behave himself with Zelenski? Very respectfully, he
was addressing him in a polite manner, Yes, very obvious feeling.
I got that he really wanted to find some solution,

(28:11):
and I don't know what was not enough to not
make it happen. Is it political or economic? It seems
to me that we promised him something else and delivered
something different, right, is that how you did? Yeah? Probably
more than we promised one thing and then didn't do anything.

(28:31):
So here's a witness of a person who was organizing
this meeting in pairs, who was there in the room
with Putin and Zlansky on the formula too by two,
and he was also the head of the office of
Zelansky for a while, so he knows what exactly was
happening there here. We have two contradicting opinions, Zdensky's opinion

(28:54):
and his head of office who was giving interview to Gordon, right,
whom do we believe? That's a complex moral dilemma? All right,
le say, is there any document that was maybe signed
at that time? They did publish a document. They usually
don't do that, but they couldn't hold they were so
surprised that they published it. You can type in a

(29:15):
search and we can go over the articles of this document.
You know, not everybody understands the meaning of those Paris Accords,
but they had colossal meaning. And now the electorate of
Petter Parashenko will get giddy from what I say, because
if we do have some of them watching us, you
guys should be very happy. Now, don't walk away from

(29:36):
the screen. Do you have it Nicolai Paris Accords? Yes?
I even see that Zernski's press service published it, right, perfect, alright.
It says that measures to stabilize situation at a lateral
contact group, they'll be discussing implementation for their steps. I

(30:01):
do want to send you a specific question water to CRIMEA.
I did not see it in this protocol, as far
as I understand Nikolai in his four In his four
and a half hour interview, he did mention somewhere that
Zanski did promise to deliver water to Crimea. Okay, here's

(30:23):
a full communicate from that meeting. To finish all hostilities
and dumbas by the end of the year, to exchange
your prisoners of war till the March of twentieth twenty twenty,
to conduct to remove troops further away from the fighting zone,
to conduct specific political actions and don Bus to give

(30:45):
them independent position on permanent scenario. Conduct the negotiations, understand
my formula and discuss further measures. If there'll be some disconnects.
There was one disconnect on this which was part of
stun Meyer's formula. How do both sides perform control of

(31:06):
the border. Here's a quote from put In by Russian Videmsty.
Do you think there's any warming up happening with Ukraine? Yes,
I think it's already happening. We will be meeting further
in the Norman deformat and here we can look deeper
into the stun Meyers formula to add future changes to
the constitution of Ukraine, to continue providing independence to don

(31:27):
Bas and to move troops away from the border. I
was actually a speaker of this trilateral contact group, and
I was participating in these events in Norman deformat, and
I know very well what was happening. Recently, there was
a book published by Angela Merkle where she describes how
she saw that situation. So what she's writing December ninth
of twenty nineteen, porschetkes gathering radicals in the government near

(31:50):
the government quarters who are chanting, we will not let
Minsk agreements to be implemented by Zelenski, those agreements that
were implemented under Parashanka. So she's actually referring to when
it what happened is giving more details. Then she is
writing that she called upon Landskip to implement the decisions

(32:13):
of this meeting, and later the Paris Accords happen, where
they specifically communicate that previous agreements will also be fulfilled.
Mensk agreements need to be fulfilled. And supporters of Parashanka

(32:34):
are now telling story that nobody was going to fulfill
those and they were just biding time to get ready
for war, understanding that put In will attack. Okay, So
if indeed you were preparing for war, where were the minds.
Why did somebody remove the mines from john Guard down south?
Why were we so unprepared, Why our south crumbled so fast?

(32:56):
Why any barricades in Kiev appeared only on the fifth
day after it was se My surrounded. So my resume
out of this is very simple. There is summit. Ukraine
took formal obligations to fulfill Minsk Accords, including Stanmeyer formula.
So Ukraine got written off three billion dollars that Yanokovich,

(33:18):
previous president, borrowed. Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia were released
back to Ukraine. That was one of the promises of
Zanansky that he was running on. And after that, Ukraine
stopped fulfilling anything of those obligations, and Russia was observing
that for a while. And then I understand that the
Europeans have no influence on Ukraine. They cannot enforce Ukraine

(33:38):
to fulfill those obligations. Russia starts to concentrate the troops
on the border with Ukraine, provoking Biden to meet with
Putin on the sixteenth of June. They meet together. Put
In is talking about something there all the time. Apparently
they're trying to assemble a Norman deformant tried to bring
put In there to put all responsibility on his ers,

(34:00):
and then put In continues to insist that he needs
judicial guarantees from NATO that they will not be expanding
further to the east. He gives orders to his ambassadors
to send warnings, and that's how the funnel looks like.
That ended up with the hot phase of this war.
One of the main factors that affected it was Ukraine
not fulfilling the results of the parious accords. We just

(34:24):
ran away from it. I did not have full data
at this point. I saw some of things that are
happening from the inside. I even now don't know all
the details of why did we not fulfill certain things?
But we were not going to fulfill elements of it
that I know. Indeed, Russia was taking a precarious position
of them not being a part of this conflict, and

(34:44):
Ukraine had to negotiate with Lugansky and daniask so called
people's republics. But then, okay, this is not acceptable for us.
But why did Parashenka sign these agreements with these so
called republics and then why Zelensky reaffirmed them at parisuccord?
Because Russia was from their side were actually allowing and

(35:05):
making certain steps in favor of Ukraine that were not
even written out in those agreements, trying to induce Ukraine
to fulfill them. And Zelensky continues to highlight that it
was Parashenka who signed wrong agreement in Minsk, Minskuan and
Minsk two, and then he highlighted that in Paris he

(35:27):
signed a better agreement, and yet he did not fulfill
this one. So then I'm thinking that put In understood
that Ukraine and Europe are basically Europe that cannot force
Ukraine to fulfill the agreements that they signed, and he
has only one option of armed conflict as he sees it,
because his problems with Ukraine at this point were coinciding

(35:51):
with the problems he has with NATO and the U.
He clearly understands that European politicians can promise to not
expand to the East only for the cadence of the
current leadership. So like Cole promised not to expand, and
then the next chancellor comes and decides to okay, let's
support it. And Puttin invented an argument which he thinks

(36:15):
is the only argument that can enforce the West to
fulfill their obligations according to those agreements, a continuous threat
of war, an actual war, and continuous threat of war,
and with that factor, war is always a trump card.
Not a single politician can discard that the Left come
to power. They have to consider the war probability the

(36:36):
right come to power. They also have to consider that
there may be a hot phase of the war coming.
So he evolved an ideal for him mechanism to enforce
the West to follow with the agreements, and the Grain
too as the proxy of the West, as they see
Ukraine in Russia, and they think this is an ideal

(36:57):
instrument to enforce the West to build the system of
collective security in Europe. This is the formula that Putin
continues to chant throughout twenty twenty one. By the way,
and yeah, and he is going for some affirmation that
NATO is not going to expand eastward any further. So

(37:18):
that's his logic for starting this war. What was our
logic when we promised something on the Paris Accords but
then decided not to fulfill. One of the things that
Zansky brought up saying that the Parliament didn't vote for it, Well,
it was your majority. Your party wasn't majority there, so
it is on you as the leader of that party
to vote for it. And again, why do you sign

(37:40):
something that you are not aware or you know will
not be fulfilled or you cannot fulfill because it depends
on somebody else. Then make promises that you can fulfill,
don't take the ones that you can't, and then come
up with, oh, the Parliament didn't ratify it. Me personally,
I don't have so much problem with them not exactly

(38:03):
fulfilling these obligations. But my problem with this is that
why did we agree to something that we knew were
not going to fulfill? And now Zelenski continues to talk
that Minsk agreements were horrible and they were in a
bad position for Ukraine and delicately putting to silence that
Ukraine was not going to fulfill Paris accords. And one

(38:24):
needs to reveal that to show that the situation, how
the situation unfolded. Perry's summit was on the ninth of
December till the end of March. Roughly Putin is still
trying to force Ukraine to get to fulfill the agreements.
On the twenty first of March. I think he is
making a phone call to Macron and Merkel and the

(38:46):
last offer to somehow influence Ukraine. And that's what she
writes in her book too. That's where she outlines that
she understand that Putting is losing faith in Europe as
being a mediator, a mediating force between Russia and Ukraine,
and he's making other decisions and he is trying to
talk to United States instead because he thinks that Europe, France, Germany,

(39:09):
there are no subjects of the negotiations anymore. Then they
meet with Biden in June. Not exactly sure what they
talked about. Maybe Trump administration will publicize some of these materials.
And the last conversation that Biden had with Putin was
on the thirteenth, about nine days before the war. Right,
they talked about something, and Burns right, he did also

(39:32):
fly to meet Putin, right as Washington Post as was publishing.
We don't know the details of these communications, but apparently
they were talking about something. But it does seem more
and more of that. Sorry, I've lost the train of
thought here. Yeah, sorry for interjecting, Alexey, but yeah, I
mean ballpark, that's the funnel. That's how the events unfolded,

(39:53):
and that's my answer and questions why are we not fulfilling?
Why we're not taking obligations that we do not fulfill?
And I don't know if sincerely believes that Putin is
not fulfilling Paris accords and it's his fault. But I
am putting the words of Bogden that we put here
the book by Merkle where she's outlining her point of view,

(40:13):
and my memories that I remember and that I know
from those times and Parashenka and his radicals threatening to mature.
Lensky does not fulfill the Ukrainian obligations the key to
all that and Coosakh, representative of the Russian side on
those negotiations, was saying that the key to all that
situation is Ukraine's inability to deal with the demands of

(40:34):
the radicals. That's where the key to this problem. This
was also pointed out by representatives of France and Germany.
This is the key to everything. You guys in Ukraine
government are afraid of demands of your radicals, so that
Majo Zelenski, who is presenting himself as ambitious, nobody wants
to nobody can manage me and is laughing about the supposition.

(40:58):
Maybe your Marcus some influence on I remember those four
hundred radicals who were walking in the government quarters and
seventeen thousand National Guard defending us from them. So where
was that bravery? Now these radicals are partially killed in war,
partially still fighting in the trenches for fighting for all that,
and Zelensky is sitting in his office telling that Putin

(41:21):
is to blame and not his inability to deal with
the Ukrainian radicals. If we are as adults observing his
responsibility for this situation, and the real interviewer would be
asking these questions of Zelensky. But I will say here
that Lexi is a kind person. He's asking questions about
the future, not about the past. Well, it's his right, Alexi. Right.

(41:44):
President Zelenski and his interview did say about a lot
of responsibility of other presidents and other countries for what's happening,
right Nikolay nothing about his own exactly, And he also
ignored the collective responsibility of his country of Ukraine when
he talks about Ukraine was forced to give up nuclear arms, okay,

(42:06):
but we were not forced to sell all the other
armaments we had. We were selling APC's tanks, jets, and
we're not talking about some old scrap that we cut
and sold by pieces for metal for scrap. We're talking
about actual weapons exactly, Nikolai. When this war started, the
countries whom we sold those tanks and armored personnel carriers,

(42:31):
I remember their surprised eyes when Ukraine came back to them, asking, hey,
can you sell them back to us for this war?
And I still remember their surprised faces when they're saying that, guys,
your Kiev is in semi circle. You're fighting for your
survivals supposedly, but your representative is asking us to sell
it for eight hundred and fifty while we were trying
to sell for six hundred. We're giving you a discount.

(42:53):
And I understand somebody wanted to beef up their pockets
with money. And who was that, well, those were Zelenski's
government responsible people who were in charge of buying all
the equipment and munitions. In ninety one, Ukraine had the
biggest military group in Europe. Armaments and all where is

(43:15):
all that were we inforced to sell it or to
transfer it to somebody. There was enough weapons in this
group to capture Russia. All the way to Vladivostak. Even
if we had a fifth of this stockpile left, we
could fight successfully. What happened with the warehouses that blew
up on the Parassian car Since twenty fourteen to about

(43:37):
twenty second of twenty two, Ukrainian forces spent about seventy
thousand tons of munitions in fighting with Russia, and that
previous before the main hot face, the warehouses that blew
had two hundred and fifty thousand tons, and they still
cannot find the guilty party, neither Shenka no Zolenski. We

(44:02):
had the most valuable nomenclature there missiles for Smirch systems,
the ones that we did not produce anymore, and then
they were running looking for Smirch missiles and you know,
by the fourth of April we only had four of
those left. So that's how we were preparing for this war,
both Parashenka and Zelenski. So of course the blame is

(44:25):
on Putting. He is an aggressor who made a solemn
decision to start this war, the hot phase and the
big invasion, and it's thousands and hundreds of thousands of
lives of soldiers and civilians are on him. But the
share of responsibility of and guilt in this well not guilt.
Responsibility in this conflict is on European partners and on

(44:48):
Ukraine and our presidents and administration of Trump. I hope
will investigate about what are the real reasons that preclude
this war from getting concluded. And Zelansky continues in this
recent interrobute to evade the topic of responsibility. Everything is
being blamed on Putin, that he is a healthpond, that
he is vollan de mort and that coincides with the

(45:12):
moods of Ukrainians who are suffering under Russian bombs right now,
But is absolutely incongruent to real politics, to making sure
you find a solution to the problem and determine the
proper cause and consequence connection. And when you approach with
such tool, the prognostication tells that the outcome will be unfavorable.

(45:37):
You will not get joined to NATO, you will not
get arms, and you will be in a much worse condition.
But emotionally, of course, it's satisfying you cost put In
seven ways to Sunday. You added him to the legion
of healthponds, and you feel better naming him. But he
continues to achieve his goals stubbornly, and we are still discombobulated.

(46:02):
So what do we see? We see that Putin is
leading the country that attacked us, and systemically he continues
to fulfill his goals. Yeah, with problems, of course, but
he is definitely grinding to them. We see the West
that asks us to acknowledge the reality of war and
to understand how we and help them understand how to
solve it. And then we see a good third of

(46:24):
Ukrainians for stubbornly resisting and fighting and saying we'll never negotiate,
and we are unbending and unwavering. So we'll see what happens.
Just a couple of weeks left till the twentieth of January.
Kelek has not arrived yet. When he arrives to Ukraine,
follows the rhetoric of our official politicians, see where it
swings after. But there is a nuance on the West.

(46:46):
There are already no politicians who still believe any obligations
that Ukraine takes. They already not believing that because Ukraine
has not fulfilled any of the promises. Neither at the
time pre pre pre war, when we're supposedly preparing for
it nor during the war. And they also add that

(47:10):
Ukraine failed to deliver on the promises, but Putin did
fulfill on all the promises that he gave to the West.
And they're saying that they don't like Putin, they don't
want to deal with him. He is not a good guy,
but he fulfills his promises. And you good people are
failing to fulfill whatever obligations you take upon yourself. So
how can we proceed with this? All right? One more

(47:35):
question about this whole trip, I want to ask. I
keep going back to the message of Zelensky that four
years that we get under Trump is not enough for us.
But I'm thinking that four years could be all that
we have really to develop our situation, to change it somehow,

(47:56):
and every day of delay in these four years will
be not in our favor, and a like say it
would be good for us. I think to realistically approach
to the next four years and approach the whole process
of rebuilding the inner processes during these four years. I
want to hear your opinion. During these four years of Trump,

(48:18):
if the destiny, the fate decides that there will be
a ceasefire, and there'll be some diplomatic activity happening instead
of fighting. In your view, what can be done during
these four years to rebuild our inner processes and such
fashions so we can try to evade the second round
of this war, Nikolai, We can do a lot of

(48:39):
colossal things. We can beef up our enforcement agencies, a
military industrial complex. We can bring back the motivation for
our citizens to stay in this country and to work
for this country. We need to turn our country to
face our citizens. But again, this all depends upon who
will come, which team will come and will be implementing
these politics. Right now in Ukraine thirty aggressive percent have

(49:04):
prevailed over seventy percent, thinking otherwise, who believed the Lenski
who voted for him and then he jumped camp. So
from the point of view of these seventy percent, the
Lanski radically changed and went to the camp of their
political opponents of Parashenka, against whom they voted army, speech
and faith. That's what they are writing in the commentary

(49:24):
to this interview, if you going to read that. So
the question is who will be implementing that, if it
will be the same administration that we have now it's
the landscap administration. We'll see a repetition of the same.
Here are a couple examples. Right, you will understand your perspectives.
Now it's war, Right, it's martial law. The effectivity of
government in the under martial law can be thirty percent

(49:48):
more effective than peace time. Right now, one hundred and
fifty fifth Kievan Brigade. French donate money to make sure
that happens. They send it and most of them disband.
Most of them don't want to fight, and the brigade
is running worse than the other brigades. So they gather

(50:09):
an emergency meeting and Sirihsky makes a statement there that
this is the brigade commander who is in charge, This
is not the system or anybody else. And colonel who
was responsible for forming this brigade he died of a
heart attack after all this, so Siriski refuses to acknowledge
his responsibility. Civilians start to understand that, even though they

(50:30):
know it's not their provia, but from the point of
view of army, when the commander drops responsibility on his
subordinates facing his own superior this actually is an immediate disqualification.
A normal commander according to the officer and the military code.
Even if he is guilty and his subordinates are guilty,

(50:51):
maybe not, he is personally guilty, but he always takes
blame on himself and it crumbles otherwise, so zi Yansky
points at Syrisky pointsed somebody down, and eventually the some officer,
some lencio becomes responsible by his responsibility for everything. So
Zelensky is about that reaction, that chain of avoiding responsibility,

(51:14):
and we don't see Zelenski takes it. He did not
pose a question back to Sirsky, what the f are
you talking about? You are in charge, why you're talking
about brigade commander. He is in charge of his own processes.
That's not on him, that's on you, right. So Sirensk, unfortunately,
is not about that fifty people deserted from this brigade

(51:35):
already in France, even before it was shipped to Ukraine
after being formed. This is so low that it's difficult
to pick anything lower. Another example, a matter makes a
statement that inspection from Minister of Defense will be reviewing
our army, reasons for negative reports, reasons for losing what

(51:57):
is happening in the army will be changing the structure
the way it is being used, and not a word
from this commission about who was ordering army a year
ago and who brought it to such state that now
it needs investigating. Oh, General Sirski was the one in charge,
and now Drapati is supposedly responsible and newly appointed one.

(52:20):
Why is it not being discussed. Problems always have names,
and if you are not naming real persons who can
bear and should bear the blame, you will never figure
out what and how happened. Now, another example about mortar
minds shots from order, they're not shooting, not exploding. Yurtibutusov

(52:44):
is investigating that they're not exploding. The army shoots them,
but they don't work. And moreover, as he brings to
light the officers who write the reports about faulty minds,
they are forced to withdraw their reports and not write them.
And your relatives, your sons, brothers, fathers, and daughters who

(53:06):
are fighting on the front, are now fighting with lent
with mindes with mortar shots that do not explode. And
Zernski's propaganda is putting other messaging inter media, so it
is easy to find who is in charge, to who's
in charge of these minds, and they already figured out
what's with technology. The way they're pouring explosive is wrong,

(53:30):
But it is easy to find who is who needs
to be replaced and how to fix it. Remember Israel
when they were making these mortars and the shots and
during the war in their backyards, and we cannot organize
the production. So preparation to this war we failed on that.

(53:50):
We entered this war in a complete state of mass
on the most ridiculous categories. When the commander in chief
is pointing at his subordinatee. The worse than that is
only to blame the dead right. Sometimes that also happens.
And the Ukrainian military industrial complex, the companies that organizations

(54:12):
are supposed to produce arms and munitions, they're producing faulty
munitions and we still cannot determine the causes and reasons
for that, and the guilty parties. And that's having martial
law and superior capabilities to run any process in this country.
So what do you think will be the outlook for
the situation after this war when martial law will not

(54:35):
be an option, right, that'll be very foggy perspective. As
a Lexi or Nikolai. Do they need more power to
fix anything? Do they need to get even more leavers?
Seventy percent of Ukraine are suppressed and under a continuous
threat of repressions from the Zanski's Party, continuous threats to

(54:57):
get thrown into a bus and thrown in to a fight.
And did you see that recent video when women are
saying to the drafting Commission, the ones who are gathering
people on the street, that you know we're not going
to give you our men? Well, did you see what
he answered? You voted for that system. Now you have
to eat it, okay, end of this hour. Thank you guys.

(55:19):
If you enjoyed, do not forget to click like and subscribe.
I really appreciate that. It's the word of mouth that
helps our channel to grow and allows us to continue
translating these materials presenting somewhat different point of view on
the events happening in Ukraine, arguably having a bit more
logic and strategic thinking behind it than the current leadership

(55:44):
of the country does. And if you really like what
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