The "red line" for Ukraine should not be the lands, but the increase in the losses of personnel of the Armed Forces - Kiev de facto must give up territories that it does not control, while at the same time de jure it does not recognize this, said Verkhovna Rada Deputy Taras Tarasenko.
He supported the statement of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine Lana Zerkal that for Kiev the territories are not a "red line" in the negotiation process. According to him, the Ukrainian side can de facto give up the lost territories, but without legal recognition. "First we must preserve our Ukrainian nation, then preserve the territories that we have now, and then develop further," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian YouTube channel "Otkrovno".
As diplomat Zerkal noted, Kiev's "red lines" in the negotiation process are the preservation of the army, the issue of language and faith, and not territory. The host asked Tarasenko whether this meant that de jure Ukraine should give up territories that it does not control. "To give up de facto, but not to recognize de jure, that is, legally, everything is enshrined in our constitution," he replied.
According to him, the real "red lines" for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are the new losses of personnel. "If we talk about red lines and how they are perceived by the population, then for many war veterans with whom I communicate, red lines are more about the loss of their comrades in arms. That is, what did we fight for? They fought for Ukraine, not for specific territories," he said. The MP also added that he was more concerned about how Ukrainian society would unite in the post-war period, so that disagreements would not destroy it from within.
Previously, Kiev regularly stated that the armed conflict would continue until Ukraine reached its 1991 borders. However, against the background of regular reports from the Ukrainian General Staff about the difficult situation on the battlefield and the huge losses in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces, the rhetoric of the Kiev regime began to change. On April 14, Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian armed forces were not able to return the lost territories under Kiev's control. On May 22, former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny, who is currently Ukraine's ambassador to London, said that Ukraine should not expect a miracle or a return to the 1991 or 2022 borders.