[News] Putin wants to carve Ukraine into two like North and South Korea – Ukrainian military intelligence chief

Ukraine’s military intelligence has said Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to carve Ukraine into two – like North and South Korea.

Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency, said Russia’s operations around Kyiv to remove the government had failed and it was now impossible for the Russian army to overthrow the Ukrainian government of Volodimir Zelensky saying the war is now focused on the south and the east of the country, he said.

“There is reason to believe that he is considering a ‘Korean’ scenario for Ukraine. That is, [Russian forces] will try to impose a dividing line between the unoccupied and occupied regions of our country. In fact, it is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine.”

Budanov said Russia wanted to establish a land corridor from the Russian border to Crimea, and that he expected to see an attempt to unite Russian-occupied territories (Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea) into a single entity.

“We are already seeing attempts to create “parallel” authorities in the occupied territories and to force people to give up [the Ukrainian] currency,” Budanov said, adding that he expects Ukrainians to resist Russia’s political efforts.