While hinting at progress in talks with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that any “historic” compromises his negotiators agreed upon would be subject to approval by the entire country in a referendum.
“I explained to all the negotiating groups: when you talk about all these changes, and they might be historic, we will not go anywhere, we will come to a referendum,” Zelensky told the Ukrainian public broadcaster in an interview.
“The people will have their say and give their answers to some kind of compromises or another. As to what they will be, that is a matter of our conversations between Ukraine and Russia,” the president added.
Zelensky was answering a question about Russia’s demands for security guarantees for the two Donbass republics and for recognition of Crimea – the peninsula that voted to join Russia in 2014, which Kiev and the West continue to consider Ukrainian territory.