Putin threatened to crush Ukrainian army, Hollande writes

Russian President Putin threatened “to crush
completely” the Ukrainian army during talks with his Ukrainian counterpart
during the peak of the Donbas war, the tyzhden.ua news site reported on Aug.
30, citing newly published memoirs by Francois Hollande, the former French
president. “Poroshenko and Putin were constantly raising their voices at each
other,” Hollande wrote of ceasefire talks in February 2015. “The Russian
president was so riled that he threatened to crush completely the army of his
vis-à-vis. That revealed that Russian armies were in eastern Ukraine. Putin had
to catch his breath and calm himself.”

During these talks, Putin claimed he didn’t have any
direct contact with the pro-Russian fighters in Donbas, Hollande wrote. Yet he
was able to get their agreement on proposals within minutes of stepping aside
from the negotiations, which had proceeded slowly with many disagreements. “Poroshenko
defends his country’s sovereignty unrelentingly,” Hollande wrote.

Zenon Zawada: This
excerpt of Hollande’s memoirs confirm several things widely established about
the war in Donbas, but denied by Putin. The war in Donbas is a campaign of
Russian military aggression, not a civil war among Ukrainians, as the Kremlin
narrative claims. Also, Russian armies are indeed in Donbas and the pro-Russian
fighters are under Putin’s direct control. This means that the Ukrainian
government has taken the correct course in refusing to negotiate with the
pro-Russian fighters and deal only with the Kremlin in trying to resolve the
conflict.

Equally important, this excerpt reveals that Putin
has always considered the option of expanding military aggression against Ukraine.
And this aggression would have kept widening had the Ukrainian military not
stopped it. And we believe this option remains on Putin’s table as he will
continue to try to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence, or
dissolve its statehood altogether.