Page 6 - UKRRptNov22

2.0 Politics
2.1 Zelenskiy rules out peace talks with Putin
Reports from multiple sources suggest that President Zelenskiy signed a decision of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council that forbids peace negotiations with President Putin on 4 October. These reports also suggested that the resulting decree’s detailed wording can be found on President Zelenskiy’s presidential website. However, at the time of writing President Zelenskiy’s website does not refer to the decree, much less contain its actual text.
Whatever its status, Kyiv’s briefing on the decree to the world press is clearly intended to send a message that it is in no mood to respond to Moscow’s repeated invitations to discuss peace terms, at least while President Putin remains in office.
Zelenskiy’s public confidence probably flows from Ukraine’s successful occupation of the Kharkiv triangle (covered by Intellinews here), the taking of Liman last week, and more recent advances on the Dnepr River’s west bank in Kherson Oblast.
In Kherson Ukrainian forces started attacking on 6 September (simultaneously with the Kharkiv offensive) without moving the Contact Line at all, though the Kherson attacks might have been intended as a fixing operation or a distraction).
However last week a new armoured thrust along the main road from Marianske to Dudchany moved the Contact Line south by 25 kms in the space of a few days. This road, essential to the movement of Ukrainian tanks and infantry as the open ground softens in autumn rain, runs parallel to the Dnipr River and a few kms inland of its west bank. Attacking under the cover of a cloudy sky (which rendered Russian air reconnaissance and strike largely ineffective) Ukrainian forces cracked the thinly-held Russian defence positions along a narrow (~5 km) front, triggering a precipitate Russian withdrawal.
By the end of the advance Ukrainian forces had occupied a 200 sq km triangle of territory which threatened the rear of Russian troops in the northern corner of the Kherson front, who then also withdrew.
In parallel with the armoured thrust south to Dudchany Ukrainian forces continued with their attack on the western edge of Russian-occupied Kherson, where reports suggest that they have made advances of a few kilometres along parts of that Contact Line. Russian forces have withdrawn from the northern part of occupied Kherson Oblast, resulting about 1,000 sq kms of the 6,000 sq kms of west-bank Kherson passing into Ukrainian occupation.
Kyiv is reporting this success in its western media campaign as a significant “turning point” in the Ukraine war. It is certainly a second major political loss for President Putin, amplified by the juxtaposition between Russia’s acceptance of the occupied territories’ applications to join the Russian Federation, and its apparent inability to resist Ukrainian military pressure in those territories. By
6 UKRAINE Country Report November 2022 www.intellinews.com