Following Tuesday’s peace talks in Istanbul, Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky assured on Wednesday that Ukraine had for the first time announced its willingness to meet the conditions that concern Moscow most.
There is still no agreement regarding the Crimean peninsula and the Donbass region, forcing the parties to continue talks in order to reach an agreement to end the conflict.
Good neighborhood future
The conditions accepted by Kyiv would enable “normal relations” between the two Slavic countries, Moscow says
The conditions that Ukraine has accepted to be a neutral state, which means that it will not join NATO and that there will be no nuclear weapons or foreign bases on its territory, are necessary conditions for establishing normal relations between the two Slavic countries in the future is an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Russian television.
At the talks, which took place in Istanbul thanks to Turkey’s mediation, “the Ukrainian side for the first time expressed in writing its readiness to fulfill a number of crucial conditions for establishing normal relations and, hopefully, good neighborliness with Russia,” said Medinski, the Minister of Culture of Russia from 2012 to 2020.
In compensation, Kyiv would seek international security guarantees from the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Canada and Israel.
neutrality
Ukraine would agree not to join NATO and to keep its territory free of nuclear weapons or foreign bases
Medinski noted that Ukraine also agreed not to hold military exercises with the armies of other countries unless there is an agreement with the guarantee countries, including Russia.
“Ukraine has declared its readiness to meet some basic requirements that Russia has been insisting on for the past few years. If these conditions are met, the threat of creating a NATO bridgehead on Ukrainian territory will be removed,” he argued.
Despite this progress, the work must go on, Medinski said.
The reason is that Russia wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as an integral region of Russia.
This Black Sea peninsula, which includes the administrative units of the Republic of Crimea and the autonomous city of Sevastopol, was annexed by Russia in 2014 after a referendum observed by its own forces, which both Ukraine and the western community consider illegal.
security of Russia
“The threat of establishing a NATO bridgehead on Ukrainian territory will be removed,” says Medinski
Moscow also insists on the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (PLR) People’s Republics in the Donbass region, which Putin recognized shortly before deploying his forces to Ukraine on February 24.
“The principle position of our country towards Crimea and Donbass remains unchanged,” stressed Medinsky.
But the position of Ukraine, which does not want to make any territorial concessions, has not changed either. The Kiev delegation proposed on Tuesday to negotiate over a 15-year period in order to then deal with the status of Crimea. Crimea is a non-negotiable issue for Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said on Wednesday. Crimea “belongs to Russia,” he said. “According to our constitution, we cannot talk to anyone about the fate of a territory of the Russian Federation, the fate of Russian regions, that’s out of the question.”