Can Zelensky's 'victory plan' bring peace to Ukraine?

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.

First question, is Zelensky's finalized 'victory plan' realistic to bring peace to Ukraine?

Well, the peace plan that he's talking about is a proposal that he's going to present to President Biden at the meeting in UN in the next few days. They are there for the UN General Assembly, and it consists essentially of beefing up Ukraine's military capabilities with the possibility to use more long-range weapons and other things in order to substantially increase the military difficulties that Russia already having. Thus, possibly, hopefully, making it certain, making it clear to the Kremlin that there's no way to victory and that they have to sit down and agree to something that is acceptable and that can be called peace of some sort. Will this work? Remains to be seen, to put it in the mildest possible way.

Second question, why is there backlash against EU's anti-deforestation law?

Well, it's not unique for that particular one. I mean, all of the legislation for the so-called Green Deal that was decided due to the last five years, a lot of it is fairly complicated and has significant burdens on industry in order to reporting requirements and all of those. That includes the deforestation law. So there is a push to say, "Well, well it's all good. But let's delay it somewhat so that business has the possibility of catching up with all of the requirements." You will see that debate about several aspects of the Green Deal. It doesn't endanger the deal itself, but it perhaps streamlines and perhaps delays it somewhat.