The Ukrainian navy’s high intelligence official stated Russian forces are on the verge of shifting ways towards attempting to separate Ukrainian territory the identical means North and South Korea have been divided because the Korean battle was frozen by an armistice practically 70 years in the past.
With Russia’s navy failing to seize the capital of Kyiv or different main cities, Russian President Vladimir Putin is recalibrating his focus, in response to Ukrainian Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who was among the many first to publicly predict Russia’s invasion plan months earlier than it started.
“There are causes to imagine that he might attempt to impose a separation line between the occupied and unoccupied areas of our nation,” Gen. Budanov stated in a press release over the weekend, in response to the U.S. government-backed outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
“Will probably be an try to arrange South and North Koreas in Ukraine,” Gen. Budanov stated.
The Ukrainian navy intelligence chief extra typically predicted that Russia will try to consolidate its features in jap Ukraine — a largely Russian-speaking space with stronger financial and cultural ties to Russia — and pursue the institution of a demilitarized zone, or DMZ, cordoning off the area as a result of Mr. Putin “is certainly not capable of swallow your complete nation.”
“Putin is already altering the principle operational instructions – in direction of the south and the east,” Gen. Budanov stated, in response to one other translation, by The Guardian. “There’s purpose to imagine that he’s contemplating a ‘Korean situation’ for Ukraine.”
The feedback, circulated Sunday on the Telegram social media portal, got here as Russian and Ukrainian delegations have been making ready to carry their first direct talks Tuesday in additional than two weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated forward of the talks that Kyiv was keen to contemplate a declaration of neutrality and supply safety ensures to safe peace if Russian forces withdraw from Ukraine.
In an interview with impartial Russian media shops on Sunday, Mr. Zelenskyy careworn that Ukraine’s precedence is guaranteeing its sovereignty and its “territorial integrity” — stopping Russia from carving up the nation.
Russian officers moved rapidly to dam the shops from publishing the contents of the interview domestically.
• This story relies partly on wire service experiences.