Russian President Vladimir Putin assured that he will order an immediate ceasefire as soon as Ukraine withdraws its troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in the east and south of the country, and abandons its plans to join NATO.
“As soon as kyiv announces that it is ready for this decision and begins an actual withdrawal of troops from those regions and also officially communicates its renunciation of plans to join NATO, the order to cease fire will be immediately issued from us. and start negotiations,” Putin said when addressing the senior staff of the Foreign Ministry, an intervention broadcast live on television.
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Putin stressed that “Ukrainian troops must completely withdraw from the entire territory of the people’s republics of Donetsk and Luganskand from the regions of Kherson and Zaporoyia. Then negotiations will be possible.” In September 2022, Putin proclaimed the annexation of these four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine (in addition to Crimea in 2014), and today the Russian Army does not control them in their entirety.
Putin demanded that Ukraine give up four annexed regions in exchange for a ceasefire. (Infographic: AFP).
The Russian leader also assured that Russia commits to ensuring “safe and unhindered” withdrawal of Ukrainian military units. The president stressed that Russia demands a “neutral, non-bloc and non-nuclear” Ukraine, to which must be added the “demilitarization and denazification of the country”, two of the objectives set when he ordered the start of the military campaign in February 2022.
“Without a doubt, the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine must be fully guaranteed; the new territorial reality must be recognized; the status of Crimea and Sevastopol, and the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as entities of the Russian Federation,” he added.
Putin stressed that all these commitments must be coined as international agreements, which would also include “the cancellation of all sanctions against Russia.” “I believe that Russia is proposing a variant that will truly put an end to the war in Ukraine. That is to say, we call to turn a tragic page of history“, said.
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These claims constitute a Ukraine’s de facto surrender requestwhich is fighting to maintain its territorial integrity and sovereignty after the Russian invasion.
Ukraine called Putin’s plan a “farce”
The Ukrainian government called the Russian proposal a “farce.” Putin’s demands They are “offensive to common sense”said an advisor to the Ukrainian presidency.
“Of course, there is nothing new, no real peace proposal and no desire to end the war. But there is a desire not to pay for this war and to continue it in new forms. It’s all a farce. Therefore – once again – let’s get rid of illusions and stop taking seriously the ‘Russian proposals’ that offend common sense,” Mijaílo Podoliak on social networks. “Putin has simply formulated the ‘standard aggressor package’ that we have already heard many times,” he added.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergaffirmed that the Russian president’s proposal is not an initiative for peace, but for “more aggression”, and affirmed that it is not made “in good faith.”
Ukrainian soldiers prepare to fire 120-millimeter mortars toward Russian positions on the front, at an undisclosed location in the Donetsk region, Ukraine. (Photo: AP/Oleg Petrasiuk/24th Ukrainian Mechanized Brigade).By: AP
”It is not a peace proposal. “It is a proposal for more aggression, more occupation,” declared the Norwegian politician in a press conference after the meeting of Alliance Defense Ministers held between Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Stoltenberg stressed that it is not Ukraine that has to withdraw troops from its territory, but it is Russia that must withdraw its army from occupied Ukrainian territory. ”This proposal (from Putin) means that Russia should have the right to occupy even more Ukrainian territory, the four provinces that (Moscow) claims are not Ukrainian,” he commented, adding that, therefore, the ceasefire initiative does not It is made “in good faith.”
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyindicated on Friday that he met with Pope Francis on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy and that he spoke with him about the peace conference in Ukraine scheduled in Switzerland this weekend.
“We talked about the consequences of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Russian air terrorism and the difficult situation in the energy sector […] and the expectations of the world peace summit,” which will take place on June 15 and 16 in Burgenstock, Zelensky said on Telegram.
Putin, for his part, assured that Zelensky is an “illegitimate” president who is usurping power after his mandate expired on May 20 and maintained that the summit in Switzerland “will be reduced to vague conversations of a demagogic nature and a new round of accusations against Russia.
