Vladimir Putin wants to divide Ukraine twice, which mimics the post-war divisions between North and South Korea, says a military intelligence official in the war-torn country.
In a statement raising hopes of a long and difficult conflict, General Kyrylo Budanov, who had predicted a Russian invasion since November, warned of a bloody terrorist attack.
The prediction came as Leonid Pasechnik, leader of a group calling itself Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, said: “I think a referendum will soon be held in the republic, where people… have their views on joining the Russian Federation.”
Budanov said he believed Putin had reconsidered his plan for full settlement as he had failed to quickly capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and overthrow the government of Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “It is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine,” he said with a new Kremlin strategy.
Officials in Kyiv said they expected the military to attack the capital and the troubled city of Kharkiv to move east within two weeks.
For other developments:
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called for calm speech as he distances himself from Joe Biden’s speech in Poland on Saturday when the US president called for Putin to be removed from office. Zelenskiy told a group of Russian journalists that Ukraine was willing to discuss taking a neutral position as part of a peace agreement with Russia but it would have to be confirmed by foreign companies and a referendum was submitted. The Kremlin said “it is not up to the American president and it is not up to the American people to decide who will continue to rule Russia,” as U.S. officials want to back down on Biden’s remarks. Vadym Denysenko, Ukraine’s interior ministry adviser, said Russia was trying to destroy Ukrainian fuel depots and foodstuffs, as firefighters fought for 13 hours to put out a fire in the western city of Lviv after a series of shooting attacks on Saturday night. Zelenskiy urged western countries to provide military “dust” weapons to cells, saying his country needed 1% of Nato aircraft and 1% of its tanks. “We have been waiting for 31 days,” he said. “Who is in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it still in Moscow because of the intimidation?” Ukraine has enjoyed its most significant attack success so far as it has once again taken the city of Trostyanets, opening the road from the besieged regional capital, Sumy, to Poltava. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 1,119 civilians were killed and 1,790 injured in the war, 15 girls and 32 boys, and 52 children of unknown sex, among the dead. Actual statistics are likely to be very high, says the UN.
Western officials are determined to prevent Putin from splitting in Ukraine. Korea was divided north 38 from 1945 to 1950, and was divided from 1953 on a military line.
Just before the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian president noted two eastern republics of Luhansk and Donetsk where Kyiv has been at loggerheads with Russian-backed troops since 2014.
Putin unveiled the so-called “special military operation” on February 24, saying he was protecting Russian-speaking people in the eastern province of Donbas.
Budanov said he was convinced the Russian president wanted to divide Ukraine despite a western offensive, the third major offensive since the start of the war.
He said: “Putin is already changing key performance indicators – facing south and east. There is reason to believe that he is considering the ‘Korean situation’ [in Ukraine]. That is, to try to establish a dividing line between the uninhabited and uninhabited regions of our country. In fact, it is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine. He will not be able to devour the whole world. ”
Russia is detained in the besieged city southeast of the port of Mariupol in its efforts to build a tunnel between Crimea, which Russia illegally seized in 2014, and the Donbas.
Budanov said he did not believe that Mariupol would soon collapse and that Russian troops would face a coup d’etat even if they could defeat an experienced Azov force in a flat city.
He said: “Residents will try to unite the territories into one party, which will oppose independent Ukraine. We are already seeing efforts to create ‘cohesive’ authorities in the occupied territories and force people to give up the hryvnia [Ukrainian currency].
“They may want to negotiate on an international level. However, resistance to the protests of our citizens in the occupied territories, the fight against the invasion of armed forces and the gradual liberation – makes it very difficult to implement enemy programs.
“Furthermore, the Ukrainian guerrilla safari season will start soon. Then there is the only right thing left for the Russian people – how they survived. ”
Oleksii Arestovych, Zelenskiy’s adviser, echoed the intelligence chief’s analysis. “Within a week or two, Russia will withdraw troops from the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions and send them to Donbas,” he said. “They saw that they could not capture the big cities; will announce the completion of the first phase of the ‘special operation’ and the first phase – the ‘release of Donbas’. ”
Arestovych continued: “They now have three missions: to round up our troops in Donbas, to take over Mariupol and to the south. If they lose Kherson [the western city of Mariupol], all their work in Mariupol will fail. And that’s all. No Kyiv, Kharkiv, or Odesa will be captured. ”
One of the witnesses, Dmitry Leonov, 36, an IT worker, said the ground shook and people were thrown to the ground because of the explosion of the tank industry. The windows of a local school are said to have been smashed by the force.
Lviv emergency services officer Khrystyna Avdyeyeva said the fuel depot was extinguished after 13 hours at 6.49am on Sunday. To those responsible for firing the arrows, from Crimea, more than 600 miles [1,000 km] away, he said: “Let them burn in the same hell. But our heroes will not be there, so no one will survive. ”