President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of agreeing a deal to end hostilities at talks in Istanbul in April 2022, but that Ukraine backed away from it once Russian troops fell back from near Kyiv.
The deal is reported to have included clauses demanding that Ukraine adopt a geopolitically neutral status and not join NATO, limit the size of its armed forces and grant a special status to eastern Ukraine – all things which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made clear he opposes.
Putin again raised the subject of potential peace talks recently and said he was open to what he called realistic negotiations.
But he is opposed to the two-day high-level conference to be hosted by Switzerland in June at Ukraine’s request that seeks to achieve peace, saying it is pointless if Russia does not take part.
The Ukrainian president said “no,” when asked whether the 2022 talks in Belarus and Turkey had the potential to stop the war.
“Negotiations are when two sides want to come to an agreement. There are different aspects, but when there are two sides,” he said in a video posted on his website.
“But when one side in any case, regardless of the country or the city, gives you an ultimatum, that is not negotiations.”
Zelenskiy’s options are running thinner by the day, Russia is advancing in the field and churning Ukrainian men, which cannot be replaced by Western aid.
