TheChek News Flow

KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed suggestions that his country should cede territory to Russia in return for peace, comparing them to attempts to appease Nazi Germany, as Russia stepped up its attacks in Ukraine’s east.

With the war in Ukraine now past the three-month mark, there is debate among Western officials about what it would take to achieve a cease-fire, and what concessions—including territorial ones—such a deal might necessitate. But despite Russia’s renewed attacks in Kharkiv and other areas of the east, Moscow has absorbed heavy losses in both troops and equipment, raising questions of how long it can sustain the forward thrust of its military campaign in Ukraine.

Poland, the U.S. and the U.K., among Ukraine’s staunchest allies, have advocated taking an uncompromising stance against Russian aggression. Some European Union states have floated the idea of giving President Vladimir Putin an off-ramp that would make it easier for him to justify a de-escalation to his domestic audience in Russia, while a peace plan drawn up by Italy proposed autonomy for Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas.

Mr. Zelensky forcefully rejected the notion, put forward Monday by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, that Ukraine should forfeit land to Moscow as part of negotiations on a peace deal.

Mr. Kissinger, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, had said that “ideally, the dividing line should return to the status quo ante,” suggesting that Ukraine should allow Russia to retain the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and swaths of the eastern Donbas region seized by Moscow-backed separatists the same year.

Mr. Zelensky described Mr. Kissinger’s suggestions as on par with attempts to appease the Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

“I get the sense that instead of the year 2022, Mr. Kissinger has 1938 on his calendar,” he said in a video address Wednesday night. “And that he thought he was addressing an audience not in Davos, but in erstwhile Munich.”

In an expletive-filled tirade broadcast on his YouTube channel on Wednesday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych called those who say Kyiv should relinquish land “crazy.”

“Get lost with suggestions of this sort, that Ukraine should trade some of its territory,” Mr. Arestovych said. “Children are dying here, soldiers are stopping shrapnel with their own bodies, and they’re telling us to sacrifice territory. It will never happen.”

Military analysts and diplomats say the intense battle for the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine makes it unlikely either side will seek a cease-fire soon, since a shift on the battlefield could lead to a more favorable position for talks later.

“For Henry Kissinger to offer some part of sovereign Ukrainian territory as an appeasement—I find it objectionable,” said Bill Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and current analyst at the United States Institute for Peace, which is funded by Congress. “They’re not ready to cede, they’re not ready to give up claim to their territory; they’re ready to fight, they’re ready to win and we should help them do that.”

The Kremlin said that Moscow expects Kyiv to accept its demands.

“These are not territorial concessions,” Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Thursday. “Kyiv must acknowledge the de facto situation and simply give it a sober assessment.”

The exchanges come in the midst of an intensified Russian assault in Ukraine, focusing on eastern parts of the country to which Moscow switched its efforts after failing to capture Kyiv.

Kharkiv, which came under fierce Russian bombardment early in the war as Russia’s forces pushed to seize the city, was heavily shelled Thursday. Nine civilians, including a 5-month-old child, were killed, and 19 were injured in the attacks, said Mr. Zelensky in his nightly video address. It was the first attack of such a scale since Ukraine’s second most populous city began reopening stores and re-establishing communal services after weeks on the front line.

Officials urged Kharkiv residents to take precautions in case of further attacks.

The Russian army also shelled settlements in the Mykolayiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, local authorities said. Three people died in Lysychansk, a city Russia has been seeking to capture as it vies for control of the Luhansk region, Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said. Mr. Haidai said attacks on nearby Severodonetsk have left dozens of homes damaged.

Russian forces have been trying to encircle Lysychansk and Severodonetsk as they move to capture the area around the Siverskyi Donets River, pushing back Ukrainian forces that still control the westernmost parts of Donbas, which is claimed by Moscow-backed separatists fighting alongside Russia in the war.

A Ukrainian officer in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk said that the Russians were trying to break into the cities, but without success.

“The enemy has not advanced a meter,” said the officer. “They are taking losses, but unfortunately our guys are, too.”

He said the cities are under constant fire from artillery, mortars, tanks and warplanes that are hitting civilian buildings, roads and bridges, resulting in civilian deaths. Citing the three he said were killed in Lysychansk overnight, he added: “They aren’t picking their targets.”

The fighting spirit of Ukrainian troops in the two cities remained strong, the officer said. Volunteers are helping to keep the troops supplied, he said, “but the main thing we need is fighters.”

Russia on Thursday said it had targeted two ammunition depots in eastern Ukraine and destroyed a signals-intelligence center in an attack that it said had killed 11 Ukrainian service members and 15 foreign specialists. Ukraine didn’t immediately comment on the claim.

Ukraine said Russia was also strengthening its defense lines around occupied parts of southern Ukraine, including in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as it attempts to cement its control there.

In Mariupol, a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell to Russian forces after weeks of relentless bombardment, footage posted to social media showed Russian trucks parked in parts of the city center, fitted with large screens and broadcasting Russian TV news, which advances the Kremlin’s false narrative that Russia is defending Ukraine from fascists running the government in Kyiv.

The intensified assault in eastern Ukraine is coming at a high cost to Moscow, which has lost thousands of troops since it launched its invasion on Feb. 24, according to Ukrainian intelligence and Western officials.

The U.S. has assessed that Russia has also lost roughly 1,000 tanks, 350 artillery pieces, 50 helicopters and three dozen fighter aircraft during the war, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday. Ukraine’s General Staff put its estimates of Russia’s losses higher for similar categories.

In Russia, officials took additional steps to shore up the faltering economy. Russia’s central bank cut its key interest rate for a third time since early April, lowering it to 11% from 14%.

The Bank of Russia has now largely reversed a doubling of the key rate that took place after the invasion of Ukraine, a move intended to support a rapidly weakening ruble and limit a surge in inflation as imports became more expensive.

The currency and the country’s financial system have since stabilized, as Russia’s foreign-currency revenues from oil-and-gas exports have surged because of higher prices. But the outlook for the economy is gloomy, with Western sanctions limiting Russia’s ability to import needed goods.

Mr. Putin said Thursday that isolating Russia is impossible and those trying to do so “will harm themselves the most,” in remarks to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum.

“Western countries are sure that any persona non grata who has their own point of view and is ready to defend it can be deleted from the world economy, politics, culture and sports. In fact, this is nonsense,” he said.

In Davos, Germany’s chancellor said Russia won’t win the war.

Conquering the whole of Ukraine is now even less possible than at the start of the war, Olaf Scholz said in a speech at the gathering in Switzerland.

“Our goal is very clear: Putin must not win his war,” Mr. Scholz said. “And of this I am convinced: He will not win.”