Reporter and journalist María Senovilla, collaborator of Atalayar, analyzed in the program “Facing the world” On Onda Madrid the constant attacks and power cuts against Ukraine. She also mentioned negotiations to obtain a ceasefire.
Events such as the power cut of February 28, from which Ukraine has suffered since the start of the war, are unfortunately the daily lot of Ukrainians, which undergo Russian bombing, power cuts and attacks against their power plants, among others.
We are now used to power cuts and know how to face it. We have repeatedly suffered power cuts on certain connections. However, since last July, it seems that these generalized cuts which have touched the whole country for long hours have been resolved thanks to nuclear energy, these nuclear power plants that the Zelensky government has set up and reinforced so that the cuts are not as serious, and which have worked well since then.
But a year ago, when we connects for places like kyiv, where we sometimes had four to eight hours of electricity per day, out of four -hour slices, life was difficult, the traders had gasoline generators who roared on the sidewalks, people adapted and in the most delicate cases, for example in hospitals, it was terrible, for example in maternities, Caesarean deliveries to program them during the hours when they knew they would have electricity and thus avoid endangering the lives of babies and mothers … To what extent these generalized and prolonged cuts conditioned the lives of all.
I gave you two examples at random, but it was really like that every day: we got up when we wondered when we were going to have electricity, when she was going to be cut and how we were going to spend the day.
On this May 1 bridge, when we take stock of the situation in Ukraine, attacks and power cuts are of course a key element of this situation for three years of war.
For the past few months, Ukraine has increased the production of its nuclear power plants, which has somewhat appeased the situation. There are still power cuts from time to time, but the situation is much better than last summer, where it was terrible. In fact, barely two months ago, a truce was proposed to spare the Ukrainian electrical installations of the bombing, because these continue, a truce that Russia has not respected and which is always the subject of an exam.
Zelensky quickly offered his help to Pedro Sánchez to manage and compensate for the faults of this historic breakdown, because here, its engineers, all those who work in electrical infrastructure, from politicians to employees of the pure and hard engineering sector, now have a perfect control of the management of this type of problem, which is not the case with any other country in Europe. He quickly proposed his help, because here, they are prepared and act very quickly, given the state of deterioration of electrical infrastructure after three years of systematic bombing of Russia against these strategic points.
In this situation, some believe that the Americans, that Mr. Trump, could lose patience, because their work of mediation in negotiations is limited. Where are the negotiations to obtain a ceasefire, to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that is to say in war?
This week, Donald Trump finished his first 100 days in power, and it is a kind of tradition in the White House to celebrate this event and to publicly take stock of the achievements accomplished. For example, this year, on Monday, signs with photos of immigrants accused of serious crimes, such as rape or murder, were placed on the lawn of the White House in order to underline the way in which Trump strengthened security at his borders.
It seems that measures against illegal immigration are the most appreciated in the polls of these 100 days, where the question of war management in Ukraine by Trump is not very well rated. The American president had promised that within the first 24 hours of his mandate, he would end the war in Ukraine, but the reality is that during these 100 days of Trump at the head of the United States presidency, the business magnate managed to weaken Ukraine and embrace Russia.
Putin feels unpunished. We see him week after week when he bombes civilian targets in Ukrainian cities like kyiv or Soumy. Let us not forget the recent massacre of children in a park in Kryviy Rih, which remained unpunished. These double impact attacks that we relentlessly denounce in these microphones, and without the new President of the United States doing much more than tweeter “Vladimir, stops” because he has taken no concrete measure.
If, before January 20, the date of Trump’s inauguration, we had been told that Donald Trump’s inaction was going to be so blatant, we would not have believed him. But in addition, he worked to humiliate the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on each occasion that arose. The height of these humiliations, as we saw live during the retransmission of the meeting which took place at the White House, where Trump and his vice-president JD Vance attacked the Ukrainian president as shot, going so far as to blame him for not wearing a suit and shirt. By the way, Zelensky was present at the pope’s funeral in Rome last weekend and the Vatican exempted him from wearing a costume and a shirt to attend the funeral. They made an exception to the protocol for Zelensky and said they understood the situation perfectly. And yet, Trump continues to strive to launch these personal attacks against Zelensky and, instead of proposing constructive measures that would help the negotiation process, he only gives the situation.
The United States currently agrees for Ukraine to give up the occupied territories to Russia. This week, they have already proposed openly that Zelensky formalizes the sale of Crimea, but both the American representative in Ukraine, General Kellogg, that other voices of the Trump administration, have been repeating for 100 days that it will be very difficult to recover the rest of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, 20 % of the country, with entire provinces like Lougansk, a large part of Donetsk, Zaporijia, Kherson, whom Russia occupied in 2022, and they give clues to the official position of the United States, which is to make Putin all the territorial concessions he requests.
In addition, the United States did not directly blame Russia and Putin directly for the unilateral invasion that started in 2022. On the contrary, the American president went so far as to designate Zelensky and the Ukrainian people as responsible for their own invasion, which is completely crazy. What he did is ignore Europe, to withdraw from the negotiating table on Ukraine and clearly show that we have nothing to say in the new world order.
Another absolutely shameful point is that, in these peace agreements, the United States introduces trade agreements as a condition for continuing to help the mediation process. These are abusive agreements by which Trump intends to appropriate the mining and energy resources of Ukraine, in exchange for practically nothing, because he does not in return offer any security guarantee to protect this country in case Russia invades it again.
These are, basically, the main points that Trump puts on the table every time he makes an offer, each time he says to Zelensky that he wants to serve as a mediator. There were really no other significant advances. Russia continues to reject the ceasefire proposed by Ukraine. For example, the more than 13,000 Ukrainian children removed since the launch of this large -scale invasion have not been returned. Russia continues to commit war crimes daily. We go from one title to another, but there is no solution. Trump did not propose any practical measures that could be implemented quickly and have an effect, which ends this war or which has a step more towards peace. He is content to publish tweets or make statements that do not lead anywhere.
