Concrete offer handed over: Russia wants to negotiate again with Ukraine

Submit a concrete offer
Russia wants to start negotiations with Ukraine once more

4/20/2022, 2:43 p.m

There has been radio silence between Russia and Ukraine for more than three weeks. The Kremlin is now submitting a new offer for negotiations. Russia does not want to set a deadline, but the aggressor in the Ukraine war is still exerting pressure.

According to its own statements, Russia has given Ukraine a written offer for a negotiated solution to the war. “Now the Ukrainian side has been handed our draft of the document, which contains absolutely clear and sophisticated formulations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax agency. He did not give any details regarding the content of the Russian proposals.

Peskov explained that there was no deadline for Kyiv to respond to the offer. At the same time, however, he made it clear that Moscow was dissatisfied with the pace of negotiations so far. “We have said several times that the dynamics of the work of the Ukrainian side leave much to be desired,” said Peskov. Now “the ball is on the side” of the Ukrainians.

The spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Maria Zakharova, previously said that Russia no longer had confidence in the Ukrainian negotiators. They constantly changed their point of view and did not stick to negotiated agreements, she claimed.

“Russia refuses any sign of humanity”

According to Ukraine’s chief negotiator Mykhailo Podoliak, the situation in Mariupol is making future talks with Russia more difficult. “Of course, once morest the background of the Mariupol tragedy, the negotiation process has become even more complicated,” he wrote in response to questions from the Archyde.com news agency. “Russia defiantly refuses any sign of humanity and humanism when it comes to certain humanitarian corridors. Especially when we talk regarding Mariupol.”

Negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv began on February 28, four days following Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on Ukraine. In the negotiations so far, Russia has demanded, among other things, Ukraine’s neutrality and the cession of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well as the recognition of the Crimean peninsula as Russian. Kyiv categorically refuses to give up its own territory. No direct negotiations have taken place since March 29. Both sides held each other responsible for this.