Russia is ready for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations if Ukrainian troops withdraw completely from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and Kiev will undertake not to join NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin said so.
“Today we are making a real peace proposal, we are talking not about freezing the conflict but about its total cessation” Putin said regarding the proposal for negotiations on the condition that the Ukrainians withdraw from four regions and renounce joining NATO. “We urge to turn the tragic page of history and gradually restore relations with Ukraine and Europe,” he added. If the West and Ukraine refuse, Putin warned, they will bear “responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed.”
Video Russia, Putin: ‘The freezing of our capital is theft’
Putin – reports the Ria Novosti agency – declared that to put an end to military aggression against Ukraine, Moscow requests that it have “a neutral, non-aligned status” and not have nuclear weapons. The Russian president also calls for what he calls the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. Kiev renounced nuclear weapons in 1994 with the Budapest Memorandum with which Russia, the USA and Great Britain undertook to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine. “Of course, the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine must be fully guaranteed, new territorial realities, the status of the republics of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as subjects of the Russian Federation must be recognized”, declared Putin again according to Ria Novosti, arguing that “these basic and fundamental provisions will have to be registered in the form of fundamental international agreements” and that “naturally this also implies the abolition of all Western sanctions against Russia”.
Video Putin: ‘The summit in Switzerland? Just a trick’
Putin has criticized the peace conference on Ukraine scheduled for tomorrow in Switzerland calling it “another trick that aims to divert everyone’s attention from the causes of the Ukrainian crisis” and “to once again give an appearance of legitimacy to the current Ukrainian authorities.” This was reported by the Interfax agency. “Evidently the West has not abandoned the idea of forming some sort of international anti-Russian coalition and giving the impression of putting pressure on Russia,” Putin declared again.
The freezing of Russian capital in the West is “theft” that will not go unpunished. “Western countries have frozen part of Russian assets and currency reserves and are now thinking of a legal basis to permanently appropriate them,” Putin underlined. But “even if they sugarcoat the pill, a theft remains a theft, and it will not go unpunished”, he added.
The world is “impermissibly close to the point of no return” and risks a “tragedy” because of “the selfishness and arrogance of Western countries”, who talk about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia without considering that it “is in possession of one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world”, he added. If Europe wants to remain one of the independent centers of development in the world, it must have good relations with Russia, and Moscow is ready for this,” Putin said.
Kiev: ‘No peace proposal from Putin, just a farce’
“There are no new ‘peace proposals’ from Russia.” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhaylo Podolyak stated this on X, commenting on the conditions proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate the end of the war. “Of course there is nothing new, no real peace proposal and no desire to end the war. But there is the desire not to pay for this war and to continue it in new forms. It is all a farce. Therefore – again once – get rid of illusions and stop taking seriously ‘Russia’s proposals’ that offend common sense,” he declared.
“The Putin entity expressed only the ‘aggressor standard’, which has already been heard many times,” Podolyak emphasized. “Its content is quite specific, highly offensive to international law and speaks absolutely eloquently about the inability of the current Russian leadership to adequately assess reality. Point by point, the “proposal of the RF (Russian Federation)” presents itself so: 1) Give us your territories; 2) Give up your sovereignty and subjectivity; 3) Remain without protection (no alliance membership); fill our militarized economy and make more investments in information provocations around the world. The most important thing is point 5) Let us urgently solve the ‘non-failure of Russia’ at the expense of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian advisor said.
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