Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that Kiev’s new written proposals on how to resolve the ongoing armed conflict with Russia deviate from what it submitted to Moscow during the previous round of talks in Turkey.
“Ukraine apparently wants to stall for time and continue the hostilities,” he said, adding that Washington may have a hand in this shift.
The new proposal, sent by Ukraine on Wednesday, fails to mention that the security guarantees Kiev wants to obtain from leading world powers do not cover Crimea, the top Russian diplomat added, according to RT.
“Instead of the explicit exclusion of Crimea from the proposed security arrangement, the new document has “vague wording about an effective control,” Lavrov said.
Kiev wants to discuss the issue during a future bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, he added.
The Russian foreign minister stressed that the status of Crimea was not up for discussion in any way.
Another deviation comes in the part that describes Ukraine’s commitment to restrict joint exercises with foreign powers on its territory. The previous version said such drills would only be possible if all nations guaranteeing Ukraine’s security agree to them, including Russia. The new version says a “majority of guarantors” must give their permission and does not mention Russia, Lavrov said.
He added that the deviations from Kiev’s previous draft, which was delivered during talks in Istanbul last week, exposed Kiev’s “true intentions” of stalling and undermining the peace process.
The foreign minister said the changes exemplify Ukraine’s inability to stick to agreements and serves as evidence “that the Kiev regime is controlled by Washington and its allies, who push President Zelensky to continue hostilities.”
Lavrov said Russia will continue its efforts to negotiate peace with the Ukrainian government despite what he called a provocative move by Kiev.
Source: RT
