Ukrainian troops most likely will not be able to repulse the Russian army and restore the lost Crimea and Donbass by 2023. This was expressed by US Chief of Staff Mark Milley in an interview with Defense One.
In the near future, I don’t think it will happen this year,” he said.
Milley added that reclaiming lost territory and reaching the 1991 borders, as requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was “a very, very difficult military task”. At the same time, the American military leader expressed the opinion that “it is not impossible”.
“I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m saying it’s an extremely difficult task. But it’s their [властей Украины] aim. “They have absolutely the right to do this, this is their country,” said General Milli.
Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken said on March 24 that Washington values Ukraine’s territorial integrity. At the same time, he added that Kiev has “independently determined its actions”, but “there are other non-military methods of returning the territories.”
In December, the head of intelligence at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, said that Kiev will unitely “return the territories”, combining diplomacy and military power.
“But without power, nothing will happen. Our units will go there with weapons in their hands,” he said.
At the end of November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if he was offered “a way to de-occupy Crimea by non-military means”, it would “only be favorable”.
If the decision does not include giving up the occupation and Crimea is part of the Russian Federation, no one should waste time with it. This is a waste of time, ”the president of Ukraine said in a conversation with the Financial Times. According to him, if Kiev cannot return the lost lands, then “the war will be frozen.”
Crimean president Sergei Aksyonov later commented on Zelensky’s statements about his plans to return the peninsula to Ukrainian control. “I am sure that the “kneading” of Ukrainian infrastructure must continue, in order to at least deprive all these creatures of the technical ability to clog the air and people’s brains with their cries. Well, as for the Crimea and new parts of Russia, freed from the clutches of the Nazis, with Bankova the drug addict will not see his ears, ”the Russian politician wrote on his Telegram channel.
On February 16, the American newspaper Politico reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had signaled that Washington did not force Ukraine to return Crimea. According to sources, US authorities fear that a possible attack by the Ukrainian army on the peninsula would cross the “red line” for Moscow. The Foreign Minister believes this could provoke a broader reaction from Russia.
According to two newspaper sources present during the meeting, Blinken made it clear that the US “does not see it as a wise move at this time to try to reoccupy Crimea”, although the foreign minister did not directly say this.
Two other interlocutors of the publication did not see such judgments in Blinken’s words. They said that the Minister of Foreign Affairs called the determination of the offensive directions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as the job of Ukraine, not the United States. In their view, Blinken was “more open to possible Ukrainian actions regarding Crimea.”
“The general message was that there was a lot of uncertainty about how things were going to develop,” a source told Politico.
Crimea, where 96.77% of the voters on the peninsula and 95.6% of the voters in Sevastopol voted to join Russia, became a territory of Russia in 2014 after the referendums held there. Ukraine still considers Crimea as its temporarily occupied territory, some Western countries support Kiev in this regard. Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that the question of the ownership of Crimea is closed forever. In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “The people of Crimea made a decision and voted. The question is historically closed.