The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, rejected this Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to order a ceasefire in Ukraine as long as kyiv officially renounces entering the NATO and withdraw your troops from the new eastern and southern territoriesensuring that the Russian leader “is not in a position” to set the conditions to achieve peace in Ukraine.
“Putin has illegally occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory. “He is not in a position to dictate to Ukraine what they must do to achieve peace,” Austin said at a press conference from Brussels after the meeting with his NATO counterparts.
In this sense, the head of the Pentagon stressed that the Russian leader has it in his power to end the war whenever he wants if he puts an end to hostilities and withdraws his troops from the Ukrainian territory that he illegally occupied in February 2022.
“He started the war without provocation and since then hundreds of thousands of his troops have been killed or wounded. You can end this today if you want, we ask that you do so and leave Ukrainian territory.”Austin summarized.
Minutes before, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenbergexpressed himself in the same sense, pointing out that it is not kyiv’s business to “withdraw Ukrainian forces from Ukrainian territory”, but that It is Russia that must “withdraw from Ukrainian lands.”
The NATO leader criticized that Moscow’s proposal “is not made in good faith” and that it would mean giving Russia the right to Ukrainian territories, including more portions of the occupied regions in Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In his opinion, this initiative shows that Russia remains focused on the war and thinks that kyiv is going to withdraw from the disputed territories.
“It is not a proposal for peace, but a proposal for more aggression and occupation. “It shows that Russia’s goal is to control Ukraine,” stressed the former Norwegian prime minister.
The Russian president assured this Friday that he is ready to sit at the negotiating table if Ukraine officially renounces joining NATO and withdraws its troops from the new eastern and southern territories, occupied by the forces of the Russian Army. This was expressed during a meeting with senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he conditioned the end of hostilities on the departure of Ukrainian troops from Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
These statements come just one day before the peace summit on Ukrainescheduled for this weekend in Lucerne, attended by 40 senior officials and delegations from some 90 countries.
“I think it is an important platform to address how to find a lasting and just peace for Ukraine, and the different elements that are in the peace plan proposed by the president, Volodimir Zelensky,” said the NATO official.
In this sense, he appreciated that there are almost a hundred delegations that are going to meet at this summit although He regretted that “some great powers are not present”, the case of China which he has not expressly mentioned..
Despite this, he insisted that the summit is an “important effort” that has the support of NATO. “We all know that to have a lasting and just peace. “Russia has to understand that it must end its aggression against Ukraine,” she stressed.
(With information from EP)
