Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky believes that if negotiations between Russia and Ukraine resume, the Russian side will put forward tougher conditions both in terms of time and in essence. He stated this at a press conference.
“Today, the conditions on our part will be completely different, tougher,” he said.
He noted that this primarily concerns demilitarization and denazification, but it will be possible to talk about this only if the negotiation process resumes.
According to the deputy, during the negotiations, the Ukrainian side avoided the issue of recognizing the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, offering various indirect options, which is unacceptable for Russia.
“At the time of the negotiations, the Ukrainian side was slipping out of this issue, offering various, as it seemed to them, compromises,” Slutsky said and added that Kyiv offered options for recognition “for a certain number of years and the like.” According to him, “any negotiation constructions “for so many years and within such and such boundaries” is an attempt to divert the negotiation process aside.”
“Such options, from our point of view, do not guarantee a secure future for the inhabitants of the territories,” he continued.
In this question “there are many nuances connected both with borders, and with a factor of time”. “In our opinion, this territory has the same borders, and everything must be done in order to once and for all ensure the safety and freedom, protection from Nazism of people who have suffered significantly from it over the past eight years,” the deputy noted.
On July 18, presidential aide Yuriy Ushakov noted that after the last meeting of the delegations of the two countries in Istanbul and the achievement of certain agreements there, the Ukrainian side does not maintain contacts with Russia. He added that now the conditions for negotiations are completely different.
Moscow has repeatedly accused the Ukrainian side of changing its position, of being inconsistent, of abandoning the agreements already reached and of putting forward new conditions that were not previously agreed upon.
