Two years of war according to Zelensky: “31 thousand Ukrainian deaths, 180 thousand Russians. Talk to Putin? Crazy”. But this paves the way for a peace summit in Switzerland

31,000 killed among Ukrainians, 180,000 among Russians. This would be the toll of two years of war according to Volodymyr Zelensky, who revealed these figures for the first time during a long press conference with the international media. Figures significantly lower than many estimates disseminated by Western intelligence sources, which recently put the possible death toll among Ukrainians at around 70,000 victims. However, these figures have so far never been officially confirmed or denied by any government. The Kiev leader, however, refused to provide figures on the wounded, saying that by doing so, “Russia would understand how many people left the battlefield.” However, Zelensky made another sensational revelation at a press conference, rewinding the tape to the final year of the war. Russia knew about the Ukrainian counter-offensive plans before it even began, making it useless, Zelensky charged. According to the Ukrainian president, plans for the counter-offensive which his troops would have launched last summer “were on the table in the Kremlin before the start of the counter-offensive, due to leaks”. It is also for this reason that the war scenario would now have changed, with Russian troops again advancing on different front lines.

War plans

But the kyiv leader does not give up and announces that Ukraine has a clear plan for a new counter-offensive. If 2022 was the year of survival and 2023 that of resilience, 2024 will be “the year of the turning point”, Zelensky relaunches. His generals are preparing various war plans for the coming months, he said, but for the strategy to succeed it requires continued support from the West: “It depends only on you.” At the same time, the Ukrainian leader is convinced that Putin's Russia is preparing a new heavy military offensive to break through his army's defenses. “We are going to experience difficult times in the months to come. Russia will prepare its counteroffensive in early summer or late May, if it can. » But “we will be ready for combat,” assures Zelensky.

Glimpses of peace

So has the time really come for Ukraine to put aside its heroic pride and demand the opening of peace negotiations in the face of the military imbalance on the front? No, Zelensky reaffirms in response to a question from a journalist: Ukraine “has no alternative to winning the war. Maybe you can talk to a deaf person? With a man who kills his opponents? But immediately afterwards, the leader of kyiv clarified that he had a diplomatic initiative in mind. The objective is to organize a “peace summit” in Switzerland in the spring, in order to develop with partners a plan to resolve the conflict which would then be transmitted to Russia. “We will provide a platform where Putin can accept that he lost this war and that it was a huge mistake and a tragedy for us and for the democratic world.” But Ukraine cannot accept losing the war, he reiterates: “It would mean that Ukraine would no longer exist.”

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