“We need an agreement with President Putin. The guarantors will not sign anything if there are troops,” Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said this Sunday in an interview with independent Russian media, including the Meduza portal (transferred to Latvia) and journalists from the banned television network Dozhd, of the economic daily Kommersant and the author Mikhail Zygar.
Zelensky, stated that Russia must withdraw its troops from the country before any document on the non-accession of Russia is signed. Ukraine to NATO and the security guarantees that, in return, kyiv demands from several countries such as Turkey and the United Kingdom. The question of the “neutrality” of Ukraine, one of the central points of the negotiations with Russia to end the conflict, is being “thoroughly studied”. “We are willing to accept it,” he continued.
“neutrality” under debate
“We need an agreement with President Putin,” Zelensky said in an interview with Russian media. But “the guarantors will not sign anything if there are troops.” He said he was willing to meet his Russian counterpart (lgc)https://t.co/Dj100ekInEZ
— DW Español (@dw_espanol) March 27,
“But I don’t want it to be another document in the style of the Budapest Memorandum”, he added, referring to the agreements signed by Russia in 1994 in which the integrity and security of three former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, were guaranteed in exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons inherited from the USSR and which Zelensky has said that it was a dead letter.
New round of negotiations in Turkey
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations will meet from Monday to Wednesday this week in Turkey for a new round of face-to-face negotiations. This was advanced by both parties and, later, the Turkish presidency added that the talks would take place in Istanbul, as agreed by the Turkish president himself in a telephone call with Putin.
Zelensky explained that he is willing to sit down with Putin “anywhere in the world” to reach an agreement “with signatures, seals and even blood” signed on the document. “That would be enough to start the withdrawal process. The troops must be withdrawn, the guarantors will sign everything and end”, he stressed.
He indicated, however, that then the work will not be finished, because Ukraine will have to change its Constitution, since it is enshrines the State’s aspiration to join NATO and this can take up to a year. A referendum will be held first, because “only the citizens can decide on the status and the guarantors,” he said, something that can be organized in “a few months.” And the necessary changes to the Constitution will be made, which could take “at least a year”.
Crimea and Donbas
Regarding the status of Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk, Zelensky said that it is an issue that “must be addressed and resolved”. “I say it is a commitment. Let’s go back to before all this started (February 27) and try to solve the complex issue of Donbas ”, he stated. The president also stated that the terms “denazification” and “demilitarization” are not on the table as Russia wanted because he refuses.
Zelensky also maintained that only “Putin and his circle are prolonging the war and that what is happening “is worse” than a war and that their goal is to “minimize the number of victims and shorten the duration” of this conflict. In addition, he suggested that he does not like the idea of Poland sending a peace contingent to Ukraine, stating that “we do not need a frozen conflict on the territory of our state.”
The communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, had stated that these Russian media should not publish the interview, warning that “ it will determine the degree of responsibility and take response measures,” according to Meduza.
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