The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, toughened his conditions this Friday to consider a ceasefire or a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine. Almost two and a half years after invading the country, the Kremlin is demanding more territory from kyiv than it already occupies in the attacked country and that it suspend its plans to join NATO, something it has always rejected. Moscow keeps four southern and eastern provinces partially occupied and wants Ukraine to give up the areas it has not yet lost to Russian troops. Both the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and representatives of the United States and the Atlantic Alliance have rejected the proposal. Putin’s plan, launched on the eve of the Peace Summit being held this weekend in Switzerland, represents an “ultimatum,” Zelensky has said.
The regions that Russia has been partially occupying since February 2022 and claiming as its own territory are Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, all in the south and east of Ukraine. Moscow also seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and illegally annexed it. “As soon as they declare in kyiv that they are ready for such a decision and begin a real withdrawal of troops from these regions, and also officially announce the abandonment of their plans to join NATO, for our part, immediately, literally on the same minute, a ceasefire order and the start of negotiations will follow,” Putin said this Friday in a speech to the main leaders of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The Kremlin’s proposal comes on the eve of a summit in Switzerland, without Russia or China, in which kyiv hopes to strengthen its support and after Zelensky has signed new bilateral security pacts with NATO members, such as the one signed by the Thursday with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, as a sign of kyiv’s approach to the Alliance. Also this week, the G-7 reached an agreement on the mechanism to deliver new financial aid to Ukraine of some $50 billion, using interest generated by Russia’s frozen assets.
More than 100 delegations and 57 world leaders are expected to participate in the summit in the Swiss Alps to seek solutions to the war. Issues such as nuclear and food security in Ukraine will be addressed. Russia, which from the beginning announced its disinterest in the summit, considers that the meeting will be “useless” because it is not represented.
Zelensky has flatly rejected the conditions put forward by the Russian president, ensuring that he will not stop the offensive on Ukraine even if those demands are met. “These ultimatum messages are no different from those of the past,” he declared to SKYTG24 television from Italy, where the G-7 summit was held. “It’s the same thing Hitler did; That is why we should not believe in those messages,” he added, comparing Putin with the genocidal German and the expansionist desire that led to World War II.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has not given credibility to the Kremlin’s plan and believes that it is not presented “in good faith.” “It is not a proposal for peace, but a proposal for more aggression and occupation. “It shows that Russia’s objective is to control Ukraine,” he criticized.
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For Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense, Putin has now launched this proposal with the intention of getting a few hours ahead of the Swiss summit, in which Zelensky seeks to gather more international support for kyiv’s conditions to end the war. that involve recovering all the territory lost to the Russians. Putin “is not in a position to tell Ukraine what he must do to achieve peace,” Austin declared from NATO headquarters in Brussels, reports the Reuters agency.
Putin has warned that if kyiv and the rest of the allied countries reject his plan, they will be morally and politically responsible for continuing “the bloodshed.” “Evidently, the situation on the battle front will change and not in favor of the kyiv regime, and the conditions for the start of negotiations will be different.”
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