The Russian president, Vladimir Putinassured this Friday that he will order an immediate ceasefire as soon as Ukraine withdraw its troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in the east and south of the country, and abandon its plans to join NATO.
“As soon as kyiv announces that it is ready for this decision and begins a real withdrawal of troops from those regions and also officially communicates its renunciation of plans to join NATO, “The order to cease fire and begin negotiations will be immediately issued from us.”Putin said when addressing the senior staff of the Foreign Ministry, an intervention broadcast live on television.
Putin stressed that “Ukrainian troops must completely withdraw from the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, and the Kherson and Zaporoyia regions. Then negotiations will be possible.”
He specified that it refers to the administrative territory of these four regions when Ukraine achieved independence from the USSR in 1991, since today the Russian Army does not control them in their entirety.
The Russian leader also assured that Russia commits to ensuring “safe and unhindered” withdrawal of Ukrainian military units.
He 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 it 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 Luhansk, 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, we call to turn a tragic page in history,” she said.
At the same time, Putin warned that “if kyiv and Western capitals give up on this, as in the past, they will ultimately be politically and morally responsible for the continued bloodshed.”
“Evidently, the situation on the ground, on the battle front, will change and not in favor of the kyiv regime and the conditions for the start of negotiations will be different”he stressed.
Putin, who once again denounced that the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky is an “illegitimate” president who is usurping power after his mandate expired on May 20, set these conditions on the eve of the Swiss peace summit.
“We can already anticipate that (in Switzerland) everything will be reduced to vague conversations of a demagogic nature and a new round of accusations against Russia,” he asserted.
