There is no point in talking about Ukraine's defeat or Russia's defeat, Petr Pavel says.

Czech President Petr Pavel has told the New York Times in an interview that Ukraine needs to be realistic about its goals in the war and that the most likely outcome of the conflict is that Ukraine will have to concede some territories. The admission that Ukraine may have to cede territory is especially surprising from Pavel, who the New York Times describes as one of Ukraine’s most robust backers, Remix News writes.

„The most probable outcome of the war will be that a part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation, temporarily,”

he said. But that „temporary thing” could last years, said Pavel, who is currently visiting the United states. According to Pavel, neither Ukraine nor Russia can expect to achieve their utmost goals.

„There is no point in talking about Ukraine’s defeat or Russia’s defeat,”

he said, adding that the end result will be somewhere in between.

Pavel is not the only one making such comments. For example, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky also said:

„We see that Ukraine is unable to take back all of its territory at the moment, that’s a reality.”

According to him, this does not mean, however, that Ukraine has to cede some of its territories to Russia, the Czech CTK news outlet writes.

As is known, Kyiv currently demands the return of all territory occupied by Russia, including the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. Russia, on the other hand, wants Ukraine to surrender Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea.