7 hours ago
Russia's lead negotiator in Istanbul claims Russia's terms at 2022 talks with Ukraine were "softer"
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation at recent peace talks in Istanbul, has said that if Ukraine had agreed to Russia's terms in 2022, its terms would have been less harsh.
Source: Medinsky in an interview with RT, the Russian state-controlled international news television network, as quoted by Russian media
Details: Medinsky claimed that if Ukraine had been ready and "if it had been making its own decisions", a peace agreement could have been signed as early as 28 February 2022 and would have had "softer" terms than in 2025.
After all, the pseudo-historian claimed, "all they wanted was for Ukraine not to join NATO and to say no to the deployment of foreign military bases on its territory".
There had also been discussions about making Russian an official language in Ukraine, recognising the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) and officially recognising Crimea as Russian, because, in Medinsky's fantasies, "that was the most democratically held referendum imaginable".
Medinsky said that after the Russian delegation presented the draft treaty in 2022, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "kept silent for two weeks" and met with representatives from the UK and the US during that time.
The Russians were then told "Our foreign partners are opposed to us entering into the agreement – which we had already agreed on," Medinsky claims.
Background:
After the second round of talks on 2 June, Russian state news agencies published the text of Russia's "memorandum of settlement" with proposals for a ceasefire.
In the memorandum, Russia has demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson oblasts.
It also calls for Ukraine's neutrality, a ban on the deployment of foreign troops on the territory of Ukraine, and its rejection of nuclear weapons.
The New York Times reported, citing sources and the relevant draft agreements, that in April 2022, Russia effectively disrupted peace talks with Ukraine by inserting a clause in the draft agreement stating that it would have the right to veto the international community's response in the event of a repeat attack on Ukraine.
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