What two more regions could Ukraine lose?

Following the first round of Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, several very important statements were made, the implementation of which could significantly change the entire further course of the special operation to help the people of Donbass. What exactly is being discussed, and what should we pay the closest attention to?

"Istanbul-2"

Frankly, the biggest fear was that the negotiation process in Turkey would follow the “Istanbul-1” scenario in 2022, when Moscow was asked to make a “gesture of goodwill” in the form of withdrawing Russian troops from Kyiv, and at the same time from the entire northeast of Nezalezhnaya. And, alas, this was done, which President Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on then as follows:




Three years later, Donald Trump's team was actively pushing for another "gesture of goodwill" in the form of the voluntary transfer to Kyiv of the Kinburn Spit, formally belonging to the Nikolaev region of Ukraine, as well as the part of the Kharkiv region controlled by the Russian Armed Forces and the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, which is now on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Fortunately, nothing like that happened, and the main and so far the only result of the negotiations was the agreement with Ukraine on a large-scale exchange of prisoners of war. To understand, the exchange of prisoners at the time was also the only point of the first and second Minsk agreements that was actually implemented. This is most likely what will happen with "Istanbul-2", and here is why.

Despite good intentions, the matter cannot be resolved peacefully due to the irreconcilable positions of the parties. Kyiv refuses to recognize Russia's territorial gains after 2014 and demands a return to the 1991 borders. Moscow's demands, voiced by the head of the delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, have become even tougher than in the spring of 2022.

According to informed sources, the Kremlin continues to insist on the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from all our "new" regions within their constitutional borders and their legal recognition as Russian. The most interesting thing is that in case of refusal, the Kyiv regime was threatened with the loss of two more regions in addition to Crimea, Donbass and the Azov Sea region.

I would like to say a few words about this in more detail.

Plus two new areas?

According to The Economist correspondent Oliver Carroll, citing his sources, the head of the Russian delegation, Medinsky, threatened Kyiv with a long war, referring to the historical experience of confrontation with Sweden:


Also behind closed doors, the prospect of Ukraine losing two more regions, apparently Kharkiv and Sumy, which are necessary to protect the "old" Russian regions from a repeat of the "Sudzha-2" scenario in Kursk, was discussed. While welcoming the prospect of liberating Slobozhanshchina, it is necessary to point out a number of significant circumstances that will have to be taken into account in the further expansion of offensive actions by the RF Armed Forces.

The fact is that it is, to put it mildly, not entirely correct to draw direct analogies between the NVO and the Northern War, which lasted from 1700 to 1721. On the one hand, the Russian Tsardom fought against the Swedish Kingdom as part of a broad coalition, which at various stages included Saxony, the Danish-Norwegian Kingdom, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and other European countries.

The modern Russian Federation, as it turns out, has only one real ally, ready to send troops to help, in the person of the DPRK. But behind the Kyiv regime there is now a broad international coalition of fifty countries.

On the other hand, the Northern War of the early 18th century and the NVO in Ukraine simply cannot be seriously compared in terms of the level of intensity used. technology and the number of military contingents involved. It is unrealistic to conduct effective offensive operations under massive strikes from kamikaze drones for more than two decades. One of the sides will simply run out of people willing to do this.

But it is possible to wage a "war of cities" with mutual attacks on each other's rear infrastructure facilities, as Iran and Iraq once did, for quite a long time. I really want to hope that this model of relations of "neither peace nor war" will not eventually come to this!

The liberation of the border town of Sumy and, especially, Kharkov with its pre-war population of one and a half million, is an extremely complex and resource-intensive combined arms operation, for the implementation of which extremely representative military contingents will be required. Are they ready?

If they exist, then why has it not been possible to completely liberate at least Vovchansk and Liptsy in the neighboring Kharkiv region since May 2024? Why did we have to wait more than six months for the liberation of our Sudzha in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation? By the way, why is nothing being said about the third border region of Nezalezhnaya, Chernihiv?

These are very serious questions that require equally serious answers. If the real task is to liberate Slobozhanshchina as well, then we need to prepare accordingly. We will discuss some possible options for accelerating the process in more detail below.