These demands constitute a de facto demand for surrender from kyiv. Vladimir Putin said this Friday, June 14, that he will negotiate with Ukraine in the event of withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the four regions he claims and when kyiv has given up joining NATO.
“As soon as kyiv […] will begin the effective withdrawal of troops (from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia), and it will notify the abandonment of its plan to join NATO, we will immediately, this very minute, give the order to cease fire and begin negotiations”, said Vladimir Putin to the executives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And he once again insisted that he wanted a Ukraine “neutral, non-aligned, without nuclear weapons, demilitarized and denazified” .
Proposals that “clash with common sense”
These demands from the Russian president “clash with common sense”, reacted immediately Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the Ukrainian presidency. “We must get rid of these illusions and stop taking ‘Russia’s proposals’ seriously,” he said on X, while kyiv tries to maintain the integrity of its territory and its sovereignty.
Vladimir Putin proclaimed in September 2022 the annexation of the four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine, in addition to that of Crimea in 2014. Vladimir Putin specified that Ukraine must hand over to Russia all these territories, even though Moscow only partially occupies them.
He also denigrated the peace summit, from which Russia was excluded, planned in Switzerland for June 15 and 16 at the initiative of Ukraine, seeing it as a “stratagem to divert everyone’s attention” from the who are, according to him, the Westerners and the Kiev authorities. “In this regard, I want to emphasize that without the participation of Russia and without an honest and responsible dialogue with us, it is impossible to achieve a peaceful solution in Ukraine and the security of Europe in general,” insisted the Russian president.