American missile defense bases in Ukraine: political analyst assesses possibility

He said this on Espreso TV.

"In the early 2000s, the main problem in relations between Russia and the United States was the problem of creating and deploying missile defense bases in Eastern Europe. This irritated the Russians the most and provoked the most critical reaction from them, because they believed that it upset the strategic balance between the United States and Russia. But in this case, we are talking about a military base, which is a missile defense complex. This is possible only after the war is over. During the war, the United States could hardly deploy such a complex on our territory. The second important point is that this requires a change in the Constitution, not just a special decision of the Verkhovna Rada. If this is a military base, the Constitution needs to be changed," Fesenko said.

According to him, this is very important for the future, and it may be mentioned in a secret annex.

"This is more of a strategic proposal. Zelenskyy is raising the bar here, acting as a maximalist, realizing that not everything we do gets a positive response right away. That is why he addressed the MPs during his speech and at a separate meeting, emphasizing the need to act together with our partners and influence them. They are not ready to answer us on all issues. We know this about long-range weapons, about NATO, even about the invitation, and the situation may be similar on some other issues. But we need to push our partners. This is a traditional situation for us, when we were first told "no", then "we will think about it", and only at the third stage - "yes". This was the case with F-16s, heavy weapons, air defense, and tanks. Now we may face a similar situation. Zelenskyy realizes that the situation is at a turning point. Either we will have to negotiate, but then we need the Russians to be in a weak position. We need to strengthen our position, put pressure on Russia, and he is proposing to put pressure on Russia by force. I see this as the main point of his plan and proposals. Then we need to work on it. Somewhere there will be a result in the near future, and somewhere later," Fesenko added.

• On October 16, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared the details of the five points of the Victory Plan in the parliament.