Pravda: Are Russia and Ukraine ready to negotiate?

Pravda newspaper published a report by Peter Ermelin in which he commented on the announcement of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev that Russia and Ukraine have expressed a desire to sit down to negotiate, but the writer doubted the possibility of this happening at the present time.

Tokayev made these and other statements about the Ukrainian conflict during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in which they stressed that the situation is very dangerous and in which they mentioned that both Kiev and Moscow declared their readiness to negotiate, but it’s still unclear on what platform and at what level it will take place. that.

The President of Kazakhstan also stressed that now is the time for wise diplomacy, which is why peaceful negotiations must be held that suit both sides, and he will make every effort to make this possible.

Later, the Kazakh President’s Office issued a statement calling on Russia and Ukraine for real negotiations.

Commenting on this call, Peter Ermelin wrote that the First Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs in the Russian Duma, Svetlana Zhorova, placed the blame for the refusal of negotiations on the Ukrainian side, which she said was determined not to discuss the points that Russia wanted to bring to the negotiating table.

Zhorova also pointed to two factors that she said could affect Kiev’s readiness to start negotiations:

• Stop supply weapons to Ukraine.
• European countries must not accept Ukraine in the European Union nor NATO.

Ermelin pointed out in his article that Russia rejects the plan promoted by the West to start negotiations, which is based on the plan of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he announced before the United Nations Security Council.

Zelensky’s plan is essentially based on two conditions:

• Withdrawing Russian forces from all of Ukraine’s territories.
• Bring back the boarders between Russian and Ukraine to 1991.
• Restoring Ukrainian control over all of the country’s borders and over the special economic zone in the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Azov, as well as the Kerch Strait.

Commenting on this, Ermelin wrote that the condition of returning to the 1991 borders isn’t accepted by the Russia, as Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had previously confirmed that Russia had rejected similar proposals from Kiev.

Ermelin concluded that the Russian conditions announced by Zakharova for starting peace negotiations with Kiev, which include Kiev’s cessation of hostilities, the West stopping its supply of weapons, affirming the neutral status of Ukraine, and recognizing the new regional reality under which Russia annexed 4 Ukrainian regions, not to mention guaranteeing the rights of Russian speakers to… Ukraine.