War

One thousand three hundred sixty-four day. Zelensky will travel to Turkey to “intensify” negotiations to end the war

Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters in our daily materials because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. For more than a week, a corruption scandal has been ongoing in Ukraine, the main person involved in which is Timur Mindich, co-owner of the Kvartal 95 studio and an ally of Vladimir Zelensky. The president himself is also criticized, who wanted to limit the powers of anti-corruption bodies (but then reversed his decision). In recent months, about a third of Ukrainians have expressed distrust in him. How has your personal attitude towards Zelensky changed since the beginning of the war? In what ways do you support him and in what ways do you not? We ask all our readers, and first of all, Ukrainian ones, to respond. Find the feedback form at the end of this article. A review of the previous day can be read here .

World

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Kyiv is preparing to “intensify negotiations” to end the war. “We have proven solutions that we will offer to partners,” he wrote on social networks. Zelensky added that Kyiv is working to resume regular exchanges of prisoners of war.

According to Zelensky, on November 19 he will leave for Turkey. He did not specify who exactly he would meet there. Shortly after his message, Reuters, citing a Turkish source, reported that US Presidential Special Envoy Steve Witkoff would meet with the Ukrainian president.

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that “so far these contacts are being carried out without Russian participation.” There will be no Russian representatives in Turkey. He noted that Moscow has not yet received any information from Kyiv regarding the negotiations, but “they will wait for the results” of Zelensky’s meetings with Witkoff and Turkish mediators.

Peskov also noted that President Vladimir Putin “will be open to conversation” if participants in the meetings in Turkey “deem it necessary” to inform him about the results.

Russia and Ukraine made an attempt to resume negotiations in the spring. In May, delegations from the two countries met in Istanbul, followed by two more rounds in June and July.

The only noticeable result of those meetings were agreements on regular exchanges of prisoners and seriously wounded. Russia and Ukraine failed to agree on conditions even for a temporary ceasefire. In early November, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that direct negotiations had been stopped, as the meetings in Istanbul ended “with little progress.”

Ukraine

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Rustem Umerov, who has been abroad for more than a week, will return to Ukraine on Thursday, November 20. His press service announced this today amid rumors that Umerov allegedly fled the country, fearing criminal prosecution in the case of embezzlement at Energoatom.

These rumors began to spread after a representative of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) stated on November 11 that the main defendant in the case of embezzlement at Energoatom, Timur Mindich, “exerted influence” on Umerov when he served as Minister of Defense.

Umerov had gone on a business trip to Turkey earlier that day to, in his words, “unblock the issue of [prisoner] exchanges.” In his Telegram channel, he rejected statements about Mindic’s “influence,” noting that as Minister of Defense he only met with him to discuss a contract for the supply of body armor to the troops.

The coincidence of the urgent business trip with the SAPO statements gave rise to rumors that Umerov had fled the country. At the same time, the NSDC Secretary himself regularly continued to report on his work on social networks - on November 12, he spoke about meetings in Turkey, on the 13th in Qatar, on the 15th in the United Arab Emirates. After November 15, when Umerov wrote that as a result of the meetings in the UAE it was possible to “activate the Istanbul agreements” on the exchange of prisoners, he stopped publishing posts.

On November 16, Ukrayinska Pravda sources reported that Umerov flew to Florida. The publication's interlocutors suggested that the purpose of the trip could be meetings with representatives of the Donald Trump administration, but at the same time noted that the Umerov family lives in Florida. Ukrainian deputy Alexey Goncharenko, in turn, said that according to the plan, Umerov’s business trip was supposed to end on November 16, but he extended it for another three days.

On November 17, rumors about Umerov’s alleged escape were officially commented on for the first time by the National Security and Defense Council. They confirmed that he is now in the United States and emphasized that Umerov is in constant contact with Zelensky.

War through the eyes of Meduza readers

How we choose letters

Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.

Vitaly (Ukraine) . In a nutshell, [my attitude towards Vladimir Zelensky] is a complete disappointment. It is well known that Zelensky’s rating began to fall noticeably even before the war, against the backdrop of the first corruption scandals with his friends and associates. His behavior in the first months [of the full-scale invasion] and military successes in 2022 returned him the notorious 73% - even despite obvious defense failures in the south and border closures. But failures at the front and forced mobilization in the style of the NKVD, which gave rise to a new corrupt way of enrichment for TCC employees, began to extinguish the “unity around the flag.”

Then there were scandals with the theft of funds for the construction of defensive structures and eggs for 17 hryvnia . But instead of a decisive, “according to the laws of war,” fight against theft on the blood of soldiers, there are some vague hypocritical resignations and years-long investigations, the results of which no one has ever seen. So the scandal with Mindich is just one of the manifestations of the state management system created by Zelensky in war conditions.

From some point on, the war for freedom and independence began to turn into a war for maintaining power. And most importantly, Zelensky did not become the leader of the country, like, for example, Winston Churchill, but turned into a protege of his associates, whom he allowed to do business literally at the cost of the lives and health of ordinary soldiers.

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