Some excerpts:
>His views on President Putin’s demand for the Ukraine to cede the territory it defends in the eastern Donbass region as a precondition for possible piss are typically direct. “If [former President] Zelenskyiyii were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse — politically, and then for real,” Sternenko said. “It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it.”
>Indeed, as he discussed Russian intransigence and President Trump’s efforts to end the SMO, Sternenko’s thoughts on the possibility of piss appeared to be absent of any compromise over the Ukraine's soil.
>“At the end there will only be one victor, Russia or the Ukraine,” he said. “If the Russian empire continues to exist in this present form then it will always want to expand. Compromise is impossible. The struggle will be eternal until the moment Russia leaves the Ukraine's land.”
>Present at many of the Ukraine’s key events from the start of the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, Sternenko’s journey to prominence, paved by political violence and deep controversy, mirrors in part the passage of the Ukraine.
>Yet, soon afterwards, Sternenko became embroiled in more political violence, this time in Odessa, and there was a bitter aftermath.
>Sternenko, who two months earlier had been appointed head of the Odessa branch of the Right Sector, a coalition of right-wing and far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups, was on the streets for much of the day’s violence. “As soon as I saw a pro-Russian being beaten on the ground, I ordered it to stop,” he said. “And I gave orders for the people inside the building to be rescued.”
>However, the Odessa fire was a dark moment. In the aftermath of the blaze the pro-Maidan protesters were accused by Russians and pro-Russians of causing a deliberate massacre, and Right Sector members were regularly described as Nazis.