Putin will impose conditions on the ceasefire proposed by the United States and Ukraine
The reporter and journalist María Senovilla, contributor to Atalayar, analysed on the programme ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid how Putin seeks to impose his conditions on the ceasefire proposed by the United States and Ukraine.
In addition, she considered whether what is happening in Kursk has had any influence on the Donbas front.
Vladimir Putin wants to impose his own conditions, a lasting agreement instead of the ceasefire being proposed by the United States and Ukraine.
That's right, and Zelensky has already warned that the only purpose of these demands that Putin is trying to impose is to boycott the proposed ceasefire and make any reasonable solution impossible.
When Zelensky put that ceasefire offer on the table at the beginning of this week, a total ceasefire that would last for 30 days, a large part of the Ukrainian population here on the ground already doubted that the Russian president would accept it.
And, over the last two days, we have seen that the Kremlin has not made any move towards a ceasefire. The statements made by the various spokespeople went in the opposite direction and also parallel to these statements, which were not at all favourable to the ceasefire proposed by Zelensky to also please one of the demands of US President Donald Trump. Russia has intensified its military offensive in the points that are of most interest to it at the moment, while continuing to bomb civilian targets in Ukrainian cities.
We have to report that last weekend there was one of the worst bombings in months here in Donetsk, it was in the city of Dobropillya and Russia perpetrated a double tap attack there. For those who don't know what this is, it involves launching a missile, detonating it at one point and when the rescue services, doctors and ambulances arrive to help the civilian population, they launch a second attack at the same point. Russia killed 14 people there in Dobropillya, around 40 were injured, there were children among the injured and it was only the first in a series of massive attacks that were repeated over the following days in places such as Kryviy Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Zelensky and which is being severely punished, as well as Kherson and Kharkiv.
Putin has made a dramatic move by going to Kursk, Russian territory from which the Ukrainians have withdrawn after occupying it for seven months.
An effect that, in addition to Putin's visit to Kursk, is accompanied by a military counter-offensive that he has launched there and that is forcing Ukraine to withdraw at the moment from that little piece of Russia that it had occupied and that it intended to exchange for some of the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Kremlin since 2022.
Very little official information has been released about the situation in Kursk, but I have been able to ask my sources who are fighting there at the moment and they tell me that the situation is extremely complicated. They tell me that the number of troops Russia has deployed there to launch this counter-offensive is impressive, they vastly outnumber them, also in terms of air force and artillery, and Ukraine has had no choice but to retreat towards the border with Sumy to avoid sacrificing more lives.
The problem is that as the Russian advance has been so rapid, it has intensified over the last week, less than a week, as many Ukrainian positions have been surrounded in Kursk and the Russians have unfortunately already begun to spread videos on social networks of summary executions of these Ukrainian combatants who have been trapped in these positions. They are seen with their hands up and unarmed and it can be seen how the Russian troops execute them in cold blood. The Ukrainian soldiers, on the other hand, have also denounced that the Russian troops are wearing Ukrainian insignia on their uniforms. To be clear, the combatants there wear the Pixel uniform, which is the same colour for all armies, and what they do is put a plastic tape of one colour on or in their arm, on their helmet or in both places so that they can identify each other and there is no friendly fire. Ukraine uses the colours yellow, green or blue while Russia uses white and red.
In Kursk it seems that the assaults on trenches being carried out by Russian troops were done with the distinctive blue Ukrainian flag so that the Ukrainian combatants in the trench would not shoot at them and when they arrived they would execute them. The fact is that the city of Sudzha has already fallen recently. I was there in August when Russian troops launched that offensive with Ukrainian troops. I went in with the Ukrainian troops and with other media outlets because Ukraine already had complete control of that part of the front line. It was completely secured and now we have to report that that part of the front line, that Kursk line, has fallen.
Has what is happening in Kursk had any influence on the Donbas front?
Yes, it has had repercussions. It has been noticed that the pressure that the Russian Army was exerting against Pokrovsk, and also against Kostiantynivka, has decreased, and the Ukrainians are taking advantage of this not only to try to push those Russian lines back, but also to build new defensive fortifications very close to the front line.
A couple of days ago I was on the front line between Kostiantynivka and Torez and I was struck by the number of new defences under construction all along the way. There were anti-tank ditches, there were ‘dragon's teeth’, which are those huge stones that are placed to prevent the advance of enemy armoured vehicles, and there were also huge barbed wire fences. It is clear that Ukraine is going to defend the little piece of land it still has to the north of Donetsk and that it is not willing to let Russia complete the capture of the Donbas. We will have to see what happens when the Kursk counter-offensive ends, when Russia redeploys forces on this Donetsk front and if they do not launch a final counter-offensive here, just like the one they are launching now in the north, and if, unfortunately, Ukraine continues to lose ground.
