Nearly two weeks into the unprovoked and brutal siege of Ukraine, Russia has told Kiev it is ready to end hostilities quickly if certain high demands are met, a Kremlin spokesman said.
These demands include demanding that Ukraine cease all hostilities, change its constitution to reject any intent to join any bloc such as NATO or the European Union, recognize Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent states, Dmitry This Peskov said on Monday, according to Reuters.
“We are indeed completing the demilitarization of Ukraine. We will finish this. But the main thing is that Ukraine stops hostilities. They must stop their fighting, and then no one will shoot, ”Peskov told Reuters.
“We also talked about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory, and that they should recognize that Donetsk and Luhansk [Luhansk] are independent states. That’s all. It will stop in a moment,” he added.
According to Peskov, Ukrainian officials are aware of the demands that were put forward during the first two rounds of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations last week.
Kyiv has yet to respond to the provisions, which represent the clearest list of demands Russia has made to the former Soviet state to stop the so-called special military operation that began on February 24.
As of Sunday, Russia had deployed to Ukraine almost all of the more than 150,000 troops it had amassed at the border prior to the invasion, about 95 percent, according to a senior defense ministry official.
Moscow invaded Ukraine from the north, south and east, attacking major cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson and the port of Mariupol, forcing more than 1 million people to flee.
The conflict, the largest land military operation in Europe since World War II, has sparked international outrage and led to heavy financial sanctions against Russia.
However, Russia insists that it was forced to invade Ukraine because of unsubstantiated claims of threats from Kyiv.
Peskov said the attack was carried out to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking residents of Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk, who he said were threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops equipped with US and British weapons. Ukraine categorically denied this assertion.
He also said that Russia must act to counter perceived threats from NATO, and that the alliance’s deployment of missiles in Ukraine was “just a matter of time.”
“We just realized that we can’t put up with it anymore. We had to act,” he said.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine were scheduled to meet on Monday for a third round of talks to end Moscow’s attack.