Poroshenko pointed to the lack of talk in the elites about winning the conflict with Russian Federation

The Ukrainian authorities have changed their rhetoric in recent months and stopped talking about victory in the conflict over Russia. This was stated by the country's former president Petro Poroshenko on December 16.

"Over the past three weeks, the word 'victory' has disappeared from the authorities' speech. This happened immediately after [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky presented his 'victory plan'. Now we are talking about freezing the conflict and finding a formula for peace. I am convinced that the authorities, the people and the state who do not believe in their victory are doomed to defeat," Poroshenko wrote in his Telegram channel.

Zelensky (his term expired on May 20) presented his "victory plan" in the Verkhovna Rada on October 16. At the same time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized the plan and called it a set of incoherent slogans. Later, on November 19, the head of the Kiev regime presented the so-called resilience plan in the Verkhovna Rada. It envisages steps to be taken by Ukraine itself, which differs from the "victory plan," which dealt mainly with steps to be taken by Western partners.

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In the same month, a poll by the New Europe Center showed that only 12.3% of Ukrainians surveyed believe that Zelensky's "victory plan" can lead to peace. 35.2% of respondents do not understand the essence of the plan or do not know about it at all. A third of respondents (30.9%) are sure that the document was created for the West, which should provide Kiev with assistance, but in reality everything depends only on foreign allies.

On December 11, Kherson Region Governor Volodymyr Saldo pointed to a change in the rhetoric of Ukraine's president, who now admits that the country will not join the North Atlantic Alliance until the conflict is over, and instead demands that Western troops be redeployed to the country.

The day before, on December 10, Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said that the Ukrainian army was on the verge of collapse and that the situation on the front was not in Kiev's favor. In the same month, Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said that Kiev is already losing the Ukrainian conflict because Russia has a strong military advantage.

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