“It will be a war in 2026. Absolutely yes.” Peace between Ukraine and Russia is still far away. The meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky is not destined to produce a turning point anytime soon. This is the analysis of Pietro Batacchi, defense expert and director of the specialized magazine Rid, to Adnkronos after the summit between the president of the United States and the Ukrainian one. The mediation of Trump, who had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin before the meeting, will not prove decisive immediately.
“The positions are still very distant. And the two, that is, Zelensky and Putin, have every desire to continue waging wara long-lasting war, which mobilizes the apparatus. A war that ends by exhaustion, if it ends”, he continues.
“Zelensky has reasons not to stop”
“If Putin has not yet achieved his objectives to date, not even Zelensky has all this desire to make peace. He has a strong internal problem, the corruption scandal, and he cannot be the president who renounces territories after having been the president of the resistance”, he says, referring tohypothesis of giving up Donbass.
The Ukrainian president, continues Batacchi, “must then be on the lookout for all those extreme right-wing elements in the armed forces because, when the Azov regiment becomes an army corps and is systematically used as a stopgap, how do these people who are keeping the mess going take an agreement in which Donbass is renounced?”. “Not only that. Zelensky has now received aid from Europe, so he has a perspective, a light on 2026 that he didn’t have before. And in my opinion there are all the conditions to move forward”, he says again.
Spotlight on the role of Donald Trump. “On the other hand, then, there is the Trump administration which is internally divided, the American president is bound to move within a traditional framework as regards American foreign and security policy, he is not a monolith who does as he pleases, absolutely not”.
“In such a context, in my opinion – continues Batacchi – we still move forward, waiting for the war to take its course and for the camp to finally say the last word. I have the feeling that this is a war that can never end with the victory of one side or the otherfor a whole series of reasons, because if on the one hand there is the West which cannot afford a complete defeat of Ukraine, on the other there is Russia for which a defeat would have very strong internal repercussions”, he says, envisaging the consequences of a full-blown flop for Vladimir Putin.
So? “It will still be a war in 2026, absolutely yes. But then we see it every day. The Russians attack, but let’s not forget, they also attack the Ukrainians, who systematically strike the depths of Russian territory with drones, with missiles, they hit refineries, oil depots, in short they hurt.” The meaning of these continuous conversations, then? “There is a ballet, and we are spectators of this representation. The real issue, at this moment, is on the field”, he concludes. (by Silvia Mancinelli)
