Zelensky: Bashmut’s loss may impose ‘a settlement with Putin’

Losing Bashmut could force Ukraine into an “unacceptable compromise with Putin”. Ukrainian President Zelensky warned about this in an interview with the Associated Press news agency.

Bashmut is at the center of a months-long war of attrition in eastern Ukraine, with both Russia and Ukraine claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on the opponent.

Although some military analysts suggest the city is not of strategic importance, the defeat could force Zelensky to compromise with Putin, he told the Associated Press.

Zelensky says a loss at Bashmut would “weaken our society” and that Russia could use it to gain international support for a deal unacceptable to Ukraine. “In our country, too, the pressure to reach a compromise will increase after the defeat at Bashmuyt,” Zelensky said.

According to Zelensky, Russia’s victory in Bashmut would enable it to “sell this victory to the West, to its own society, to China and Iran.” Of the situation on the eastern Ukrainian front, he said: “If Putin curses that we are weak – he will push and push and push.”