Zaluzhny will be a remake of Yushchenko, and Ukraine must accept a difficult peace, says Gennady Druzenko.

The first volunteer mobile hospital named after Pirogov (PMH) has been saving the wounded in the war since 2014. Its leader, lawyer, veteran, and public figure Gennady Druzenko, has long been advocating for a pause in the war, regardless of how unjust these terms of ceasefire may be for Ukraine.

Why does Putin need such a pause, especially since he continues to advance on the front? How will Donald Trump exert pressure on Kyiv and Moscow after his inauguration? Is the front truly collapsing? Druzenko discussed these issues in an interview with "Telegraf".

"There Will Be No Just Peace"

– Gennady, right now if you open YouTube, you can see numerous headlines like: "That's it! The end of the war," "Trump has decided everything," "Zelensky has made a decision to end the war"… How do you assess the situation? Do you genuinely feel a turning point leading to some kind of ceasefire, or is this just wishful thinking?

– It’s more like a window of opportunities. One can take advantage of it or let it pass. To fight without a change in power and, consequently, the governance structure in the country means to doom Ukraine to a rather rapid collapse.

– Please explain.

– The issue is not even that the Russians are advancing more quickly, but that the motivation to defend this extremely corrupt country, which steals from everything it can, is fading before our eyes. Why should someone risk their life while others become billionaires? In this paradigm, we are doomed to failure. Therefore, we need to seek a ceasefire. But it all depends on Zelensky. There are many questions to him, but today he is the only person (along with his circle) making decisions. It’s clear that there will be no just peace, no serious security guarantees, no punishment for criminals, no reparations or compensations. We should read about the experience of Mannerheim (the sixth president of Finland, — Ed.), who understood that sometimes one must make the best choice out of the worst options.

But we can also miss these chances. We can stubbornly fight, like Hitler, until Berlin is taken, even though Hitler's military machine was much stronger than the current Ukrainian one. If we had used this almost three-year (or ten-year) gap: built up our defense industry, fought corruption, established an effective governance system, and motivated people, then perhaps we could have fought to victory. But when everything is collapsing before our eyes, when the Ukrainian tree is being devoured by the Ukrainian beetle, we need to take a pause and "treat" the patient. Our chance is to reclaim our territory someday when a new window of opportunities opens. Or maybe, like the Finns, we won’t want to take back Donbas and Crimea. But that is definitely not the case now. Thank God, this has reached our president, and he has decided to say this. Continuing the war now means sacrificing tens of thousands more lives, losing thousands of square kilometers, and ending up with the same result. We need to seek the best option out of the worst ones. Unfortunately. The time when we could hope for victory (2022 to early 2023) has slipped away. Why? Because we have regressed to a state like Russia’s instead of progressing to a state like Israel’s. But that’s a separate conversation.

– The best option out of the worst for us is this so-called unjust ceasefire?

– Yes. The front line. Most wars stop along the front line (with some nuances). And this is not happening now, but in a month and a half when Trump takes the oath. We need to hold on for these days because there will be no ceasefire during this time. After that, we need to agree to this difficult, unjust peace. Time is working against us. And the further we go, the more obvious it becomes.

– What does it mean to agree to an unjust peace? It may not even be possible. Why would Putin stop? Or can Trump actually find some leverage to pressure the Russian dictator?

– We think that Putin is dreaming of destroying Ukraine…

– Isn’t that the case?

– In reality, he is a much more rational player than even Zelensky. Putin wants to turn a world of rules into a world of agreements. I mean the rules dictated by the USA. And as soon as Trump sits down with him and negotiates, Putin has achieved what he wanted. This is already the second Yalta. Meanwhile, Ukraine will be one of the points of agreement in a larger package.

The situation for Russians is not going so well; for example, the ruble is plummeting. If oil falls below 50 dollars a barrel (which Trump could make happen), the Russian economy will collapse. Dependence on China is increasing. I don’t think Putin dreams of making Russia a resource base for China. They are fighting with contractors, and mercenaries are becoming more expensive every month: they are already paying 25-30 thousand dollars upon "entry." Therefore, saying that they have unlimited resources is incorrect. Simply, their organization turned out to be better than in Ukraine, and they managed to transition their economy to a war footing. Thus, Putin will essentially achieve his main goals. And Ukraine, most likely, will not join NATO in the near future and will lose Donbas (everything is pointing that way). And Putin has every reason to declare victory. If you think that Putin is like Hitler, who will live in a parallel reality and push forward, then from how he restructured Russia for this war, one can draw the opposite conclusions.

So right now, in essence, all parties in the world are interested in a ceasefire or a pause. Trump needs a quick victory, a swift success because he has proclaimed a hundred times that this "meaningless," as he puts it, war must end. Zelensky needs to stop because every day we are losing territory, people, and it’s unclear how we can turn the situation around. And Putin. He has every reason to say that at this stage, he has won.

– And what comes next?

– I don’t think it will be an everlasting peace. The resumption of war or a relapse depends on whether Ukraine makes effective use of this pause or not. If we become like South Korea, there will be no war. If we become like Syria, we will undoubtedly collapse in the third "act," just like Syria or Nagorno-Karabakh. It all depends on us. They say Putin will rearm. But who is stopping him? How each side recovers is a question for both.

"We Must Invest All Our Efforts into the Pause"

– Within this ceasefire, what effective security guarantees from the West can we hope for? Obviously, it won’t be NATO, so what then?

– Bilateral agreements. NATO has fought two wars: one in Yugoslavia that it won and one in Afghanistan that it lost. I don’t understand where this NATO cult comes from. This is an organization that has not dealt with a worthy opponent. I can’t imagine Germans taking up arms and going to fight Russia. Spaniards or Greeks… NATO is largely mythologized in Ukraine. If they couldn't handle the Taliban, they are unlikely to give the Russians a beating. So direct agreements with the Americans and Germans. First of all, they work faster, and secondly, what’s the point of NATO for us from Slovenia, for example? How is it going to help us significantly? We need those who have a serious defense industry, military experience, and money. Those three components. And we, like Israel, can become a superpower. But that primarily depends on us and on the effective organization of power. Just as in 2022, when the CIA gave us a few weeks, Israel was given a couple of years when it became independent. But they broke their forecasts. By the way, the countries most prepared for war: Israel and South Korea are not NATO members.

– About the front. I spoke with Maria Berlinska , she says that the front is collapsing and the situation is even worse now than in the spring of 2022. Do you agree with this assessment?

– The situation is better in terms of the quantity of weapons, the number of brigades, but worse in terms of motivation. Back then, we were ready to die on adrenaline, while now people look back and think, why should I die? So that the head of the MSK can swim in dollars? Or so that prosecutors who are "disabled" change cars every year? Again, this is another argument that we need a pause because only it will allow us to civilly change power. Not in the style of Charles de Gaulle, who was essentially a usurper, but to hold elections.

– And how will this help us?

– It guarantees nothing, but it gives a chance. Perhaps, at last, Ukraine will