Putin announced the conditions for starting negotiations with Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry, outlined the conditions for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the start of negotiations.

He stated that Western countries, with their arrogance and selfishness brought the situation to the point of no return. According to Putin, Western politicians with their “excessive adventurism” call for the strategic defeat of Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. This, he said, has brought the world closer to an extremely dangerous situation.

The Russian President set specific conditions for Moscow to sit down at the negotiating table with Ukraine. Main two conditions – the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from all incorporated regions, including Zaporozhye, Kherson, Donbass and Donetsk (most of which have already been fully incorporated as a result of referendums in the Russian Federation) and Kyiv’s statement that it has renounced its intentions to join NATO. Once Ukraine takes these steps, Russia will be ready to move to a ceasefire and begin negotiations to resolve the crisis.

“Let me remind you that it was Washington that undermined strategic stability by announcing a unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Open Skies monitoring program. Together with NATO countries, they destroyed the decades-long system of confidence-building and arms control measures in the European space. Ultimately, the selfishness and arrogance of Western states led to the current extremely dangerous state of affairs. We have come – and this is unacceptable – close to the point of no return.”– said Putin.

Zelensky named Putin’s conditions for the start of peace negotiations “an ultimatum that cannot be trusted”reports Reuters. “These are ultimatum messages that are no different from the messages of the past”, – the president told the Italian channel SkyTG24 on the sidelines of the G7 summit. In his opinion, Putin will not stop the offensive, even if his demands are met. “He won't stop. It's the same thing Hitler did. That's why we shouldn't trust these reports.”Zelensky said.

NATO also rejected Putin’s plan. Today’s “peace proposals” by Putin, which require the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from a significant part of Ukrainian territory, naturally, are not peace proposals. For the same reason that it is not “peace proposal” and “Zelensky peace formula”providing for the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 borders and the payment of reparations by Russia.

AND “Zelensky formula” and announced today “Putin's formula” – these are not formulas of the world, but formulas for continuing the war. Since at the moment their conditions are completely unacceptable for the opposite side, and to accept them it is necessary for one of the parties to suffer a crushing military defeat, which has not yet been observed.

The only possible formula for a speedy peace now is to stop the war along the front line. But as we see, both Ukraine and the Russian Federation officially refuse to offer such a condition to the enemy. It is clear that now each side hopes for a military victory, the defeat of the enemy with the imposition of all their conditions for ending the war on him.

But if neither side achieves a decisive military victory, the peace agreement will be the result of compromises and will bear little resemblance to the current official terms of Kyiv and Moscow. The only question is when this will happen, and how many more people will die…

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