Russia Wants ‘Conclusion of Peace,’ Ukraine Says ‘Negotiations Already Sound More Realistic’

Russia and Ukraine more optimistic.

QUICK FACTS:
  • The current negotiations with Kyiv are hard and slow-going, but Russia is sincere in its wish to achieve peace as soon as possible, Russia’s chief delegate, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, has said, TASS reports.
  • “The talks are hard and slow-going. Of course, we would like them to proceed much faster. It is Russia’s sincere wish. We want to achieve peace as soon as possible,” Medinsky said.
  • “The negotiators’ main task is to search through the tremendous amount of complex issues to pick those on which agreement is possible, to rely on them, to include these points of agreement in the agenda and to gradually move forward step by step towards the end result that will suit our peoples – the conclusion of peace,” he said.
  • Medinsky preferred not to focus on the problems emerging in the process of negotiations, instead emphasizing the “task” set by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, namely “to achieve peace on Ukrainian soil, to see a peaceful, neutral and friendly state, which will not be NATO’s stronghold or a citadel of forces that wish to cause harm to our country,” Medinsky concluded.
  • “The negotiations are not easy for obvious reasons,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told media outlet RBC news. “But nevertheless, there is some hope of reaching a compromise.”
WHAT UKRAINE SAID:
  • Ukrainian officials have expressed hope this week that the war could end sooner than expected, Reuters reports.
  • Talks were due to resume on Wednesday by video link for a third straight day, the first time they have lasted more than a single day.
  • “The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said in a video address overnight.
  • Later on Wednesday, he said Ukrainians must fight to “defend our state, our life, our Ukrainian life,” but he also emphasized negotiations for “a just but fair peace for Ukraine, real security guarantees that will work.”
BACKGROUND:
  • Russia’s Medinsky told state TV that “Ukraine is offering an Austrian or Swedish version of a neutral demilitarized state, but at the same time a state with its own army and navy.”
  • Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of that idea: “This is a variant that is currently being discussed and which could really be seen as a compromise,” Reuters notes.

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