Russia will not manage to occupy Mykolaiv-Odessa region and reach the Transnistrian region. Oleksiy Arestovych, the adviser to the President of Ukraine expressed his conviction that such a scenario is unachievable. He noted that owing to the foreign partners’ support, the Ukrainian army was considerably modernized and is now better equipped, while the Russian army is exhausted and will soon give up, IPN reports.
Oleksiy Arestovych noted that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station poses an increased risk to the security of Europa and the whole world. By the multiple attacks on the power station, the Russians want to force the Ukrainian side take part in negotiations. Russia does not want a nuclear disaster, but anything can happen out of inattention.
“They initially attempted to blackmail us through the agency of the grain crisis, trying to create an opportunity for negotiations. They failed and this way started the nuclear blackmail. I don’t know what else they can invent, but I think they are not crazy to deliberately push the whole planet towards a nuclear catastrophe. But when you attack a nuclear station, anything can happen,” Oleksiy Arestovych stated in an interview on the public TV channel Moldova 1.
Moreover, according to the Ukrainian official, Russia wants to stage so-called referendums in the occupied territories so as to later make the Ukrainians kill each other.
“The referendum is a subject on their internal agenda. They want to demonstrate particular results of the operation. But the main goal of the referendum is to mobilize the population of the occupied territories and to engage the people in fighting. The same happens to the people who live in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They want to force the Ukrainians fight against each other. We realize this. Any attempt to stage referendums on our territory will cost them a lot,” stated Arestovych.
He also excluded the possibility of the war being turned into a frozen conflict. The official is sure that Russia will lose this war, while Ukraine will regain all the occupied territories.
“On our territory, there will be no frozen conflict similar to the one in the Transnistrian region as we will drive them away from here. We Europeanized ourselves and built a modern army with the assistance of our partners. We will destroy them in a year. How can they conquer the Transnistrian region? Odessa? Mykolaiv? Such a scenario is ridiculous. Do those who needed 120 days to take Severodonetsk have such plans? This happened because we withdrew from there,” said the Ukrainian official.
Asked if the Republic of Moldova could allow Russia bypass the international sanctions, Arestovych said he is sure that Chisinau will not help a terrorist state.
