Alexander Kovalenko: Putin's Topographical Cretinism Continues To Worsen
- 20.10.2025, 13:53
Talks about "Donbass exchange" are a lie and a military trap.
The Kremlin is again trying to impose its terms of "peace" - now Putin is offering the U.S. and Ukraine a de facto exchange of territories: Donbass in exchange for a temporary relinquishment of parts of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson.
Why does Putin need Donbass at all costs if he is willing to actually "give up" parts of important occupied territories?
About this, Charter97.org spoke with Ukrainian military-political observer of the group "Information Resistance" Alexander Kovalenko:
Putin will not give up anything. This is an exceptional imitation and lie. How can he give Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions to Ukraine, if the part they occupied (and even the fully unoccupied territories) was included in the Constitution of the Russian Federation as part of Russia? Nobody saw this legal paradox?
Yes, of course, they have already raped their Constitution a hundred thousand five hundred times, and let it go around in circles repeatedly. But that doesn't mean that if such an exchange happens, it won't start the process of distrust of Putin. After all, these regions are declared part of the Russian Federation, and this will cause internal conflict, internal confrontation. There are forces of the nationalist type, of the pre-imperialist revanchist type, which will treat this extremely aggressively. This proposal is purely a lie and an imitation.
Putin is thus trying to force the Ukrainian Defense Forces to stop their resistance, to begin the process of withdrawal from Donbas, the most fortified zone of the Donetsk region. There is the largest number of defense lines, borders, which Russian troops have been unable to break through and seize this territory for 11 years. So he is counting on some geopolitical confusion and failure on the front. And when the irreversible process begins, they will go on an all-out offensive using all forces and means.
That is, there should be absolutely no trust in Putin. We should not deceive ourselves. The main thing for Putin is to seize Ukrainian territories. He simply does not care about anything else. He is trying to drag out the time with negotiations with Trump and imitate readiness for the negotiation process.
- Will Russia be able to militarily completely occupy Donbass? What losses, resources and time would it require from Putin's army, and does he still have the strength for such an offensive?"
- Donbass is, for understanding, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, Lugansk and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Donbass is not a city. Donbass is not a district. Donbass is not a region. Donbass is a region with its own relief and landscape features.
When Putin talks about Donbass, it is very interesting to understand what he means. The Donetsk region? But Donbass is not only the Donetsk region. It is also Dnepropetrovsk region, part of Zaporizhzhya region, Lugansk region and even a little bit of Kharkiv region.
Hence the question: what is Donbass? And from this we should draw conclusions. Either Putin's topographical cretinism continues to worsen and he calls different things by their proper names. Or he directly says that he will continue to fight in Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Luhansk regions and so on. That is, he will again seize Ukrainian territory, regardless of any agreements.