OLENA ROSHCHINA — FRIDAY, 19 AUGUST 2022, 12:52
Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, believes that negotiations with Putin’s Russia are a dangerous game that will not lead to the end of the war.
Source: Podoliak on Twitter
Quote from Podoliak: “Negotiations with Russia are like playing a game of ‘Russian roulette’ with a full chamber and a fatal ending for everyone. Continuation of war, terror and criminal blackmail.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated the key parameters of the negotiation process. The main condition is the withdrawal of the Russian occupying forces from all Ukrainian territories.”
Background: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, after meeting with the UN Secretary General and the President of Turkey in Lviv on 18 August, said that negotiations with Russia are possible only when Russian troops leave Ukraine, including the previously occupied territories.
For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Kyiv and Moscow to resume negotiations based on the parameters established at the March meeting of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul.
In March, Erdogan said that after negotiations in Istanbul, when Ukraine presented written conditions to end the war, Turkey was ready to become one of Ukraine’s security guarantors, but the details had yet to be determined.
At the beginning of April, Russian troops were withdrawn from the territories of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr and Sumy regions. And when Russian atrocities in these territories became evident, the negotiations stalled.
Why this is important: Moscow accuses Kyiv of changing its negotiating position, but has no intention of backing down from its absurd demands; in fact, Russia seeks Ukrainian capitulation. The Ukrainian authorities do not see the point in negotiations at this stage, when the Russian Federation wants to capture and “annex” as much of Ukrainian territory as possible. And the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a chance to liberate previously occupied territories.
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