19. 01. 2023

• Turkish position on Ukraine’s peace formula
  
• Preparation of peace formula
  
• How to respond?

• Previous military training of Ukrainian soldiers
  

• Expanded training in Germany

• What to do?

• Russia falsely claims that the residential building in Dnipro was destroyed by the Ukrainians  
  
• Russian media outlets claim that the Polish TV channel aired a map of Poland with part of Western Ukraine  
  
• Former Putin adviser Glazyev thinks that without using Russia’s full potential, a catastrophe is inevitable
  

On the 10^th of January Anadolu reports the head of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who said that Turkey supported the "peace formula" offered by Ukraine to end the war. "Russia declares that it is now ready for negotiations. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed a 10-point peace plan. We, Turkey, support this plan and continue our work," Çavuşoğlu said. The Turkish Foreign Minister added that his country is "making great efforts" to end the war and is cooperating with both sides, Ukraine and Russia. "Of course, our goal is lasting peace and a mutually acceptable solution. We believe that this war will end at the negotiating table. The sooner the better," he added.

Earlier, The Wall Street Journal wrote that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's team plans to present a peace plan to end the war in February 2023. The publication writes that Zelenskyy discussed the terms of peace during his visit to Washington on December 21. Before that, in November at the G20 summit, the Ukrainian president presented a "peace formula": a 10-point plan. The mentioned plan provides the coordination of international efforts to establish radiation, nuclear, food, and energy security, the release of all prisoners and deportees, the withdrawal of Russian troops, and the cessation of hostilities. "Representatives of the US, Ukraine, and NATO have said that Ukraine's position in any negotiations, where it is likely to demand significant concessions from Moscow, will depend on its position on the battlefield, and therefore Kyiv wants to prepare for potential peace talks by achieving military victories ", says The Wall Street Journal. Later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said that the Ukrainian government wants to hold a peace summit by the end of February at the United Nations with the participation of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as a possible mediator.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on December 22 that he discussed Kyiv's peace proposals with his colleagues from the "Big Seven" after Zelenskyy visited Washington. "I can just tell you that we are considering what Zelenskyy proposed. This morning I was on a video call with our G7 partners. And that's one of the things we talked about," Blinken said. The Washington Post, after the meeting of the presidents of the USA and Ukraine, said that the Biden administration is considering three models for the diplomatic end of the war in Ukraine: the withdrawal of Russian troops from the entire territory of Ukraine (including Crimea and Donbas); withdrawal of Russian troops to the 2014 line; withdrawal of troops from all territories except Crimea. Zelenskyy previously declared his support for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the entire territory of Ukraine.

The statement of the head of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs The statement demonstrates Turkey's recognition of Ukrainian peace initiatives, but not Russian aggressive policy. It is obvious that Turkey, as one of the main players in the Black Sea region, is interested in a just peace between Russia and Ukraine based on the principles of international law. From this perspective, Ukraine should continue to lobby and persuade more countries in the world that the Ukrainian "peace formula" is built on the principles of international law and is the only acceptable way to return the world to sustainable peace and prosperity.

Over the past year, the U.S. has initiated several special training sessions for Ukrainian forces in the use of military equipment in various parts of Europe. On Sunday, January 15, another extended combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany, intending to prepare a battalion of about 500 soldiers. This training concerns the use of weapons systems Kyiv is receiving to support its war against Russia and aims to strengthen Ukraine's ability to retake territory from Russian forces. So far, the Pentagon has refused to say exactly when the training will begin, but it has now been confirmed that the training will take place at the U.S. training facility at Grafenwoehr in Bavaria. The expanded training comes at a time when Ukrainian forces are facing heavy fighting in the eastern province of Donetsk, where the Russian military claims control of the small strategic town of Soledar.

The training began shortly after the Biden administration send another $3 billion worth of arms transfers in early January 2023, making this weapon supply the largest since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The expended training is now expected to last five to six weeks, according to information provided by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley. Through this comprehensive training, Ukrainian soldiers should learn how to better coordinate their company- and battalion-sized units in combat using new weapons, combined artillery, or armored and ground forces. The program will also include classroom instruction and fieldwork that will begin with small units and gradually expand to larger ones.

The trainers who are now operating in Grafenwoehr are members of the U.S. National Guard from Florida and will train Ukrainian soldiers using 600-wheeled vehicles, more than 40 helicopters, and ten other aircraft. According to a statementfrom the Amberg-Sulzbach District Office, the exercise is not limited to the military training area and will also take place throughout the neighboring districts such as Schwandorf, Regensburg, and Cham. This expanded military training is also the first in which journalists were able to observe part of the training program in the training area. However, the media were not allowed to quote from interviews with Ukrainians and were prohibited from taking specific photographs or video footage for obvious security reasons.

The United States has been operating in the Grafenwoehr training area for several years and therefore, smaller training sessions for Ukrainian soldiers began already last year, shortly after the Russian invasion of their country. At that time, the emphasis was on training in various weapons systems that the U.S. had supplied to Ukraine, such as howitzers, which proved very effective on the battle lines. So far, the U.S. has already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian soldiers in the use and maintenance of some weapons and other equipment, including armored vehicles, and a highly mobile artillery rocket system known as HIMARS. The goal of the expanded training is to ensure that the newly trained Ukrainian soldiers will be able to use the weapons and equipment that Western countries will be supplying to them in the coming months.

Even though we cannot predict what will happen on the battlefront in the coming months, Western support for Ukraine must continue. This is especially true as Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov takes over as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine and as we approach the anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Thus, Western states should continue to train Ukrainian troops so that Ukraine can defend itself effectively. Therefore, all incoming weapons must be delivered to Ukraine so that the newly trained forces can use them. Western needs to continue to encourage allies and partners to provide donations of combat vehicles and air defense equipment and the need to increase air defense systems was confirmed, in particular, by the recent Russian missile attack on a civilian residential complex in the city of Dnipro, which killed more than 40 people.

The Russians are deliberately attacking civilians and, at the very least, the Western powers must persist in their military support for the Ukrainian army – for Ukraine to win and stop the Russians and their war and terrorist crimes.

Every time the Russian army destroys civilian buildings in Ukraine, the Kremlin propaganda has something to blame for. Back in April, Russian troops bombed a railway station in the city of Kramatorsk with two Tochka-U missiles, but the propaganda outlets falsely claimed that it must have been the Ukrainian side since Russia "did not operate the Tochka-U missiles” during the war – a blatant lie, as explained by Vox Ukraine. In June, a shopping mall in Kremenchuk was hit by a Russian missile – this time too, the Kremlin mouthpieces falsely claimed that Russia merely bombed a nearby military factory, and the shopping center, unfortunately, fell victim to a fire that spread to it from a bombed-out factory – this FactCheck Georgia article explains how the Russians lied again.

This time, after a residential building in Dnipro, was hit with the Russian Kh-22 missile, killing dozens of civilians, the Kremlin propaganda keeps repeating its mantra, that it was not their fault. The most high-profile disinformation narrative on this issue was voiced by Dmitry Peskov, capitalizing on Aleksey Arestovioch’s unfortunate mistake, falsely claiming the strike on the residential building had been the result of a Ukrainian "anti-aircraft counter-missiles'' intercepting the Russian long-range anti-ship missile. However, at the moment there are no fire weapons in the Armed Forces of Ukraine capable of shooting down this type of missile – you can read StopFake’s detailed explanatory article on the issue here.

Since launching its unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin and its propaganda mouthpieces have been eager to portray the West for the local and Ukrainian audience as the party interested in Kyiv to “fight till the last man”. One of the primary targets of such efforts has been Poland – Russian propaganda demonizes Warsaw for the Ukrainians, claiming that Poland has its eyes set on Western Ukraine. In a recent information campaign, Russian media outlets disseminated a false story on how the Polish public broadcaster TVP 1 channel, allegedly, used a map in its weather forecast program to show that Ukraine’s Lviv region belongs to Poland.

FactCheck Georgia has investigated this coordinated campaign, which involved more than a dozen of Russian media outlets, and established that the photo claimed to be depicting the aforementioned weather forecast program, was doctored. The weather broadcaster that was featured in the photo turned out to be a journalist from another media outlet, and the photo was edited artificially. Read more details here.

While Putin tries to give the motivation to the soldiers and keeps insisting that Russia’s victory in the war is inevitable, former Putin advisor on regional economic integration, Sergey Glazyev who was a long-time supporter of the war in Ukraine, criticized the Russian strategy of the war, calling the invasion a disaster for the “Russian world”.

In his interview with “Business Online'', Glazyev clearly stated that the war is exhausting for the Russian people and brings the "Russian world" closer to catastrophe. He further claimed that conflict hits hard not only the European economies but threatens the Russian economy even more and added that without a clear goal and employing the country's full potential, Russia won't be able not only to further expand its territories but to keep what the Kremlin claims the new Russia to be. Noteworthy, that Glazyev is not the only critic of Russia’s current state of war affairs – Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), who was a "defense minister" of the self-proclaimed "DNR" has continuously been expressing rather pessimistic observations for his fellow Russians. Girkin’s positions are shared on his Telegram channel, which has about 800,000-strong audience.

Karolína Mrázková – Dmytro Filonenko – Mariam Lashkhia

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