Putin sets out his terms / Phone call with Erdogan: Moscow seeks to save face

Vladimir Putin called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and told him exactly what Moscow’s demands for a peace deal with Ukraine are.

Erdogan’s main spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, told the BBC that Russian demands fall into two categories. The first four requirements, according to him, are not very difficult to meet by Kiev. The key among them is for Ukraine to accept neutrality and not apply for NATO membership, something with which Ukrainian President Volodymur Zelensky has already agreed. There are other requirements in this category, but most of them seem more like they were formulated more to save the face ryse party.

According to them, Ukraine should undergo a disarmament process to ensure that it is no longer a threat to Russia. Protection is required for Russian-speakers in Ukraine and something Moscow calls denazification. The latter is considered quite insulting to Zelensky, who is also a Jew himself and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, however the Turkish side thinks that such a claim he can easily accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to suppress them. The second category is where the biggest difficulty lies, so the touching of these issues has been postponed in the negotiations.

For this, a Putin-Zelensky confrontation may be needed, which the Ukrainian head of state says he is ready to do. Kalin indicated that this part of the requirements includes the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine; it seems that Moscow wants Kiev to give up these territories, and clashes are expected here. The bitter pill for Ukraine is also the Russian claim to officially accept Crimea annexed by Moscow in 2014.

However, in essence, the BBC says, President Putin’s demands do not seem as harsh as previously thought, and this raises a glimmer of hope for an end to the bloodshed and destruction that Moscow’s forces are sowing in the neighboring country.

top channel