Ukraine Trusts Israeli Mediation And Denies Bennett Advised Yielding To Russia

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, March 6, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

LVIV, Ukraine/Jerusalem, March 12 – On Saturday, Ukraine expressed hope for a positive outcome in Israel’s attempt to make peace with Russia, dismissing media reports that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was trying to push Kyiv to give in to Moscow’s demands.

Bennett, acting on instructions from Ukraine, held a three-hour meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Saturday. Since then, he has spoken on the phone with Putin twice and with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky four times, officials said.

“I think (Bennett) can play an important role because Israel is a country with a lot of history and parallels (with our situation), as well as a lot of Jewish migration from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus,” Zelensky said. at the briefing.

Earlier Saturday, a senior Ukrainian adviser denied a report by the Israeli Walla News, the Jerusalem Post and the US news site Axios that, citing an unidentified Ukrainian official, suggested that Bennett was urging Ukraine to cede to Russia.

Israel, “like other conditional mediating countries, does NOT offer Ukraine to agree to any demands of the Russian Federation,” adviser Mikhail Podolyak tweeted. “This is impossible for military-political reasons. On the contrary, Israel calls on Russia to assess events more adequately.”

A senior Israeli official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, called the report “knowingly false.”

“Prime Minister Bennett never advised President Zelensky to make a deal with Putin because no such deal was offered to Israel so we could do it,” the official said.

NEGOTIATIONS In Jerusalem?

Moscow has said little about Bennett’s mediation efforts. He put forward conditions, including that Ukraine recognize Crimea as Russian and the Russian-backed breakaway territories as independent. Kyiv declares that it will not cede any territory.

One official briefed on the mediation, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, foresaw the potential for warring nations to “put this (the question of recognition) aside for perhaps 10 or 15 years.”

As a possible precedent, the official cited the Soviet-Japanese peace treaty of 1956, according to which the status of the disputed islands was not settled. It was not immediately clear whether these remarks reflected broader thinking in Kyiv or Moscow.

Zelensky said he would be open to peace talks in Jerusalem and expected Israel to provide security guarantees for Ukraine.

“I told (Bennett) that it is not constructive to hold meetings in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus at the moment. These are not places where we (the leaders of the countries involved) can agree to stop the war… do you think Israel, in particular Jerusalem, is such a place? I think yes”.

Crisis diplomacy, coordinated with the United States, Germany and France, was a very difficult task for Bennett.

He left it to his foreign minister to condemn the Russian invasion on Israel’s behalf. This, according to another official, should have left Putin’s door open for the Israeli prime minister.

“Power in Russia is completely concentrated around this one person. This is a very personal matter. Israel regulates relations with Russia through contacts between leaders, and for this it is necessary to avoid harsh phrases that can cause hostility, ”the official said.

Referring to the time Putin and Zelensky spent talking to and through Bennett, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official, Simone Halperin, said in a radio interview on Thursday that the mediation effort “definitely, certainly has a chance of success.”

Reporting by Natalia Zinets, Matthias Williams, Max Hander and Dan Williams. Editing by Mark Potter.

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