Ukraine’s new proposals for a peace settlement with Moscow are a step back from its previous stance, the Russian FM says
Kiev’s new written proposals on how to resolve the ongoing armed conflict with Russia deviate from what it submitted to Russia during the previous round of talks in Turkey, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday. Ukraine apparently wants to stall for time and continue the hostilities, he said, adding that Washington may have a hand in this shift.
The new proposal, which Lavrov said was sent by Ukraine on Wednesday, fails to mention that the security guarantees Kiev wants to obtain from leading world powers do not cover Crimea, he said.
Russia has considered Crimea part of its territory since 2014, when the former Ukrainian region voted to break away in response to the armed coup Kiev. Ukraine says the region was annexed by Russia and claims it to be under its own sovereignty.
Instead of the explicit exclusion of Crimea from the proposed security arrangement, the new document has “vague wording about an effective control,” Lavrov said. Kiev wants to discuss the issue during a future bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, he added.
The Russian foreign minister stressed that the status of Crimea was not up for discussion in any way.
Lavrov said Russia will continue its efforts to negotiate peace with the Ukrainian government despite what he called a provocative move by Kiev. He added that the deviation from Kiev’s previous draft, which was delivered during talks in Istanbul, Turkey last week, exposed Kiev’s “true intentions” of stalling and undermining the peace process.
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