Ukrainian president says plan would not be fair without guarantees that Russia would not simply take over zone
The US wants Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donbas region, and Washington would then create a “free economic zone” in the parts Kyiv currently controls, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
Previously, the US had suggested Kyiv should hand over the parts of Donbas it still controlled to Russia, but the Ukrainian president said on Thursday that Washington had now suggested a compromise version in which Ukrainian troops would withdraw, but Russian troops would not advance into the territory.
“Who will govern this territory, which they are calling a ‘free economic zone’ or a ‘demilitarised zone’ – they don’t know,” said the Ukrainian president, speaking with journalists in Kyiv on Thursday.
Let’s guess who will be extracting the profit from that “free” (as in Trump doesn’t have to pay for it) zone. It sure as shit won’t be the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians haven’t been profiting from anything in Ukraine since 1990.
Inflation-adjusted GDP PPP in 1990 was $1.2 trillion, it collapsed after the dismantling of the Soviet system, and by 2022 it still hadn’t recovered to 2/3rd of what it was in Soviet times as it was below $800bn. And this is even before taking into account the massive inequality that was created at the time and has perpetuated itself. Sadly, Ukrainians have suffered immensely in the economic sphere since 35 years ago.