Russia has sent Ukraine its new negotiation proposals in writing, and Kyiv has taken up the gauntlet. Despite the disagreements after the short-lived success of the Istanbul meeting in late March, contacts with the Donbass offensive continue in the background. “The Russian side examined our proposals and expressed their position. Now it is our turn to analyze, compare and draw conclusions, including political and legal ones,” President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief adviser Mijaílo Podoliak told several Ukrainian media outlets.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, announced today that the documents would be handed over to Kyiv “with absolutely clear and elaborate wording”. “The ball is in his hands, we are waiting for an answer,” added the representative of the Russian president. Also this Wednesday, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova, addressed Moscow’s main demands. “Talks to ensure Ukraine’s neutral status, outside of a bloc and without nuclear weapons, continue,” Zajárova said, before mentioning other items on the agenda, including demilitarizing the country, restoring Russian as an official language and recognizing Die Crimea as part of Russia. For the Donbass region, however, he only calls for its independence and not its integration into the Russian Federation.
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The Istanbul meeting on March 29 made some progress in the negotiations that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations have been conducting since the outbreak of war. At that meeting, Kyiv offered Moscow its final renunciation of NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees on its territory and was open to negotiations on the future of Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, and the Donbass region, which has since expanded in the War is same year.
Zelinski’s adviser reminded this Wednesday that after the meeting in the Turkish city, Ukraine submitted its proposals “including those concerning security guarantees so that there will be no future aggression against our country”, and now the Russian counter-offer is on the series.
For its part, Moscow has not clarified whether it has set a deadline for receiving a response from Kyiv. “It depends on the Ukrainian side,” Peskov said, repeating the Kremlin’s accusations that his rival was deliberately delaying the talks. “We said it several times, the working dynamics of the Ukrainian side leave a lot to be desired; Ukrainians do not show much inclination to intensify dialogue,” criticized the spokesman for the Russian President.
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The negotiations in Istanbul, which were viewed positively by the Russian delegation at the time, drew sharp criticism from the Eurasian giant’s most nationalist sectors. According to his draft, Kyiv would receive a guarantee that if attacked, several countries would arm it within days, although this protection would preclude any conflict in both Crimea and Donbas. The Ukrainian government offered the Kremlin to deal with the status of the Black Sea Peninsula within 15 years and the situation in the east of the country in further independent meetings.
The Zelenskyi government received the draft from Moscow two days after the Russian army started the so-called “second phase of the operation”. More than a week ago, Putin explained that the withdrawal of troops from other areas such as Kyiv was a “concession” for the continuation of the negotiations in Istanbul and not for the stagnation of the conflict. Now, according to Western intelligence, these forces have been diverted to the Donbass front, where they have joined the offensive to control eastern Ukraine.
exchange of allegations
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, has also endorsed the Kremlin’s allegations against the Ukrainian delegation. “We haven’t trusted these people for a long time,” said the representative of the body headed by the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov. According to the Russian spokeswoman, the negotiations went badly from the start. “From then on, as always, a circus began, figuratively and directly, on the part of the Kiev regime: that they come, that they don’t come, that they participate, they don’t participate… Were we ready for that? that in Moscow? Of course, yes,” he said, referring to the failed negotiations to implement the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, a pretext used by Putin to order his troops to invade Ukraine on February 24 this year.
Lavrov told the Russian news agency TASS on Tuesday that the offensive that has now started in Donbass will be “an important moment”. “The aim of the operation in eastern Ukraine, as announced at the beginning, is the complete liberation of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk,” reiterated the foreign minister, who described the withdrawal of troops from Chernihiv and Kyiv as “a good gesture” that was not appreciated .”
Both parties have accused each other in recent weeks of extending talks to reorganize their troops. Putin warned on April 12 that his army would not stop until it gained control of the eastern part of Ukraine, where it went to “help the people of Donbass”. “That’s how it will be, there’s no doubt about that,” said the President.
As of April 19, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has registered 2,104 civilian deaths and 2,862 injured in Ukraine, although these numbers could be “significantly higher”. According to his figures, 660 civilians died in Donbass in the Kyiv-controlled area and 79 in the separatist part, although he does not know the reality on the ground in some areas where access was impossible due to fighting, as is the case of besieged Mariupol .
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