Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said on Wednesday that Ukraine agreed in principle to officially become a neutral country. Ukraine’s bid to join NATO was one of the reasons Moscow said it launched a military campaign against the country last month.
Medinsky made his statement a day after the sides held a peace summit in Istanbul, Turkey. He said the Ukrainian team presented a draft roadmapping a future peace deal.
“Yesterday, for the first time, the Ukrainian party announced, not only orally but also in written form, that it’s ready to fulfill a number of the most important conditions for building normal, and, hopefully, good-neighbourly relations with Russia in the future.
Let me remind you that after the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine Russia has been making these demands to the Kiev regime, to its patrons, especially the United States, for years. Russia proposed negotiations, proposed to conclude various kinds of agreements that were supposed to guarantee Ukraine’s security and provide Russia’s national interests in this area.
All these demands had been ignored for years. And the North Atlantic Alliance has also been creating an anti-Russian foothold from Ukraine, more precisely, from Ukrainian territory, for years.