On a day when Moscow and Kiev further pushed back the possibility of any peace talks to end the war stemming from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February, it was up to an eccentric billionaire to steal the spotlight.
Elon Musk, the South African American who revolutionized the electric vehicle market with his Teslas and is a pioneer of private space exploration, posted on Twitter on Monday (3) a proposal to end the conflict.
According to him, the Crimea annexed in 2014 must be Russian as it constitutes a historic area of Moscow, but a new referendum there and in the regions Putin declared annexed on Friday (30) would be held under UN supervision to define their fate. In addition, Ukraine would declare itself neutral, a Russian demand since the beginning of the conflict, aiming to avoid NATO and the European Union on its largest western border.
“Russia is doing partial mobilization. They will go for full war mobilization if Crimea is at risk. Deaths on both sides will be devastating. Russia has three times the population of Ukraine, so Ukraine’s victory is unlikely in case of total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace,” he wrote.
Unsurprisingly, Kiev denounced the idea. President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Twitter to promote a poll to question which Musk is preferred, which helps Ukraine with criticism of Moscow or which “supports Russia”.
Musk plays an active role in the war — and not a small one. Early in the conflict, with communication difficulties on the ground by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he moved low-orbit satellites from his Starlink network and made them available to Kiev, improving broadband connectivity in the country – essential for drones to give position. right to the artillery, for starters.
He even said he feared being killed by the Kremlin for it.
Equally predictably, Musk’s proposal was praised by the Kremlin. “It’s very positive that someone like Elon Musk is looking for a peaceful solution to the situation. Compared to many professional diplomats, Musk is still looking for ways to achieve peace. And getting there without meeting Russia’s conditions is absolutely impossible,” he said. spokesperson Dmitri Peskov.
While Musk took the topic to the field of “Twitter bullshit”, in real life Russians and Ukrainians sealed the impossibility of dialogue. Zelensky on Tuesday signed a decree banning Kiev from negotiating peace with Russia as long as Putin is president, in what Peskov derided.
The Russian president, according to his spokesman, will sign the laws that officialize the annexation of Donbass (Lugansk and Donetsk, in the east) and the southern areas of Zaporyzhia and Kherson. He enacted the measure on Friday, but on Monday and Tuesday both Houses of Parliament ratified it, a mere bureaucratic formality in a state given to legalism even in actions universally condemned as illegal.
The decrees and laws do not establish the exact borders intended by Russia, a prank that leaves in the air the red line set by Putin to go ahead with his threat to use nuclear weapons to defend what he considers his territory.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
