While Ukraine’s president has alleged that the only way out of the February-present war with Russia passes through diplomatic corridors, his advisor seems to advocate prolongation of the war, ruling out a ceasefire with Moscow.
“The end will be through diplomacy,” Volodymyr Zelensky told a Ukrainian television channel on Saturday.
“Discussions between Ukraine and Russia will decidedly take place. Under what format I don’t know — with intermediaries, without them, in a broader group, at presidential level,” he said, adding, “There are things that can only be reached at the negotiating table.”
The Ukrainian president stressed that the results of negotiations, which could have a variety of subjects “according to the timing of the meeting,” would have to be “fair” for his country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” on February 24 in order to “demilitarize” the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine. In 2014, the two regions declared themselves new republics, refusing to recognize Ukraine’s Western-backed government.
Ordering the operation, Putin said the mission was aimed at “defending people who for eight years were suffering persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime.”
Another goal sought by the operation was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, the Russian head of state also said back then, apparently referring to Ukraine’s far-right Azov militant outfit and the influence it wields across Ukraine’s political and military spheres.
“We want everything to return [to as it was before]” but “Russia does not want that,” Zelensky alleged, without elaborating.
Russia has so far captured the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk that features Lugansk and Donetsk as well as the southeastern city of Mariupol.
Press TV
