by Lilia Shumkova for the Saker blog

On December 8, 2021, days before Russia presented to the U.S. its Draft of the proposed Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on security guarantees, foreign Secretary of the UK Liz Truss held talks with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in the UK-Ukraine Strategic Dialogue platform.

https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en

After the talk, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office issued a statement by the Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP titled “Talks In The Face Of Russian Aggression”. In the statement the UK reaffirms our unwavering commitment to and support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic path,” and “We will explore the potential for additional UK support to Ukraine on implementing defense reforms and maximizing the benefits of its NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner status.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukraine-foreign-secretary-liz-truss-holds-talks-with-ukrainian-counterpart-in-the-face-of-russian-aggression

The same day, the UK government made public a UK-Ukraine strategic dialogue joint communique.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-ukraine-joint-communique/uk-ukraine-strategic-dialogue-joint-communique

In part “5. Conflict and stabilization” of the joint communique we find the following: “The UK and Ukraine will work to enhance Ukraine’s resilience in response to the ongoing Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. The UK-led, multi-donor Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine will help prepare for the eventual reintegration of non-government-controlled Ukrainian territory when the situation allows. We will establish a working level dialogue between conflict experts. The UK will continue to share expertise on conflict and transitional justice issues.”

Interestingly enough, the UK-Ukraine joint communique doesn’t specify exactly what territory is not being controlled by the Kiev regime. The same question popped up after reading a recent interview given by Zelensky to the Washington Post. No, not his interview from Nov 26, 2021, when Zelensky accused Russia of plotting a coup against him “for next week.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/20/ukraine-russia-zelensky-interview/

This scandal is already forgotten and buried under an avalanche of other fantastic accusations.

The interview in question was taken by a senior associate editor for the Washington Post Lally Weymouth on January 20th, 2022 and is hidden behind the paywall.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/20/ukraine-russia-zelensky-interview/

It starts with the statement “President Biden said Wednesday that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine: “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.”

Acting on Biden’s wild guess, an entire army of the western politicians emitted an endless mating call from all corners of the “free world” calling to “destroy Russia’s economy,” “cut Russia from all international organizations,” place a worldwide blockade on Russian international trade, move international armies to Russia’s borders, to attack Russian with nuclear weapons, and so on. The liberal media in the Russian language has posted numerous suggestions to murder the president of Russia. All appear to be a bit of overreaction to Biden’s guess.

After quoting president Biden, the WaPo editor asks Zelensky, “U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today that you face an “unprecedented” thread in your country. Do you believe the Russians are about to invade Ukraine and take new territory?” Zelensky answers, “Today our partners are saying that war may start tomorrow if there is a powerful escalation on the Russian side, and then there will be powerful sanctions applied.”

So, Zelensky places all the responsibility on the U.S. and other “partners” for saying that “war may start tomorrow.”  It was they suggesting the “war tomorrow,” not Zekensky himself.

The rest of the interview is Zelensky demanding sanctions on Russia’s economy immediately. Why wait, he says, for something that might not happen?

After multiple statements of Zelensky demanding sanctions against Russia, the WaPo editor asks, “Has President Biden given your country all the military assistance and weapons that it needs to defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion? Antiaircraft weapons, drones, air and coastal defense, counter-electronic-warfare provisions, Javelins, Stingers? What else do you want from Washington?” Zelensky answers, “To be honest, I’m not one of those political leaders who discuss tiny details of military support because I think those should be confidential.” He also says that he is under attack “a military attack, cyberattacks and energy attacks.”  Considering that Ukraine is currently an NG transit country from Russia to EU and that Ukraine refused to buy natural gas from Russia years ago, it’s not clear what “energy attacks” he means.

When asked for the “worst-case scenario”, Zelinsky says the following: “I will say realistically if Russia decides to enhance their escalation, of course, they are going to do this on those territories where historically there are people who used to have family links to Russia. Kharkiv, which is under Ukrainian government control, could be occupied. Russia needs a pretext: They will say that they are protecting the Russian-speaking population.

After Zelensky uttered his “worst-case scenario”, the population of Kharkov went into a panic mode.  The Russian population of Kharkov  understood Zelensky’s statement that he plans a false flag attack by some militants in Russian uniform taking over the city and slaughtering Russians while claiming that they were the “Russian fighters.”

Population panic forced Zelinsky’s spokesperson to issue not one, but two statements to amend the damage done by saying that Zelinsky gave a “hypothetical scenario” and that Kharkov won’t be occupied.

https://nv.ua/world/geopolitics/nikiforov-obyasnil-slova-zelenskogo-o-tom-chto-rossiya-popytaetsya-zahvatit-harkov-novosti-ukrainy-50210416.html

Kharkovates responded with comments online asking if they should start marinating meat to celebrate May 9 Victory Day over fascist Germany. The celebration is banned by the current Kiev regime.

https://ria.ru/20220121/zelenskiy-1769000765.html

Multiple genocidal threats of Kiev regime’s against Russians in Ukraine is addressed by Russia’s Foreign Ministry from 22 January 2022 titled “Response to the US Department of State’s fact sheet Facts vs. Fiction: Russian Disinformation on Ukraine

https://mid.ru/ru/press_service/publikacii-i-oproverzenia/oproverzenia1/nedostovernie-publikacii/1795579/?lang=en

In his interview, Zelensky mentioned Kharkov as a possible battleground exactly because the city has a large Prussian population. But there was something else he said that caught my attention. He said: “Kharkov, which is under Ukraine government control”…

The extent of the Kiev regime’s control over Ukraine is not an idle question. Since the power grab in 2014, the Kiev regime all but destroyed independent media, and its absence makes it harder to estimate the level of control enjoyed by Kiev over the entire country. There is some anecdotal evidence of locals chasing away some Kiev emissaries in the Western parts of the country. Lvov does not appear to be under Kiev’s control, either. There is, also, a very strong possibility that some large Ukrainian cities, like Dnepropetrovsk and Sumy, are under the local and intentional mafia control rejecting any Kiev interference with their rules.

Now, after the WaPo interview with Zelensky, we know that the Kiev regime controls at least two cities: Kiev and Kharkov.


Lilia Shumkova, an independent journalist, Russia

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