Zakharova said the West wants to shift the blame for the madness in Ukraine onto Zelensky

Western countries are preparing to shift the blame for their own follies on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (whose term of office expired on 20 May) and the Ukrainian people. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said this on 4 December when answering Izvestiya's question.

On December 2, former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine might temporarily cede territory for the sake of a quick ceasefire. On December 1, Zelensky admitted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) lacks enough military personnel to retake the territories.

"Zelensky needs more money, more weapons. Westerners are gradually starting to shift the blame to Zelensky, to the Kiev regime, and to Ukraine in general. I think they will reach the point of blaming Ukrainian citizens," she said when asked what goals the West and the Ukrainian president were pursuing when talking about the possibility of ceding territory to end the conflict.

According to her, the West is gradually starting to prepare the ground to accuse Ukraine, its president and people of their crimes and insane criminal philosophy of inflicting "strategic defeat" on Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman emphasized that it was the people who were sacrificed by fighting "to the last Ukrainian" who would be held responsible for all Western failures in Ukraine.

Zakharova also said that the Kiev regime does not care about its citizens. In this regard, she recalled the list of 630 prisoners of war that the Ukrainian side refused to take back. It was published on December 2 by Tatyana Moskalkova, the Russian human rights ombudsman.

"They (citizens of Ukraine. - Ed.) they do not need them. Why? They need to be treated, they need to be fed, they need to pay social benefits. Not only that, they also need to listen to them, they will want to speak out (about the Kiev regime. - Ed.)," Zakharova said.

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Before that, on November 29, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the country would suffer defeat in the conflict with Russia. In addition, he said, Western countries expect Kiev to make concessions for the sake of a peace agreement.

On September 28, the British magazine The Spectator wrote that Zelensky may accuse Western allies of betraying Kiev in order to get an excuse to hold peace talks with Russia. On 2 December, Verkhovna Rada MP Artem Dmytruk said that the Ukrainian president was unwilling to admit his own political mistakes.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.