There’s been a lot of buzz yesterday and today about the Russia - Ukraine negotiations taking place in Turkey. Specifically, led by the UK Financial Times—and anything coming out of UK media re Ukraine has become almost ipso facto suspect—many are claiming that Russia is somehow backing down on its demands. A glance at the statement by the lead Russian negotiator demonstrates that this is not the case. This claim is largely based on the Russian statement that it has no objection to Ukraine joining the EU in the future:
Russian Chief negotiator Medinsky: "We have received written proposals from the Ukrainian delegation. Ukraine pledges to be neutral under international legal guarantees and to abide by nuclear-free status."
"These guarantees do not apply to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol.
#Ukraine refuses to seek to return them by military means and declares that this is possible only through negotiations", MedinskyOf course, this does not correspond in any way to our position, but #Ukraine has formulated its approach. Also, the guarantees do not apply to that part of Ukraine, which it calls "separate areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" - Medinsky
"#Ukraine refuses to join military alliances, renounces to the deployment of foreign military bases, contingents, military exercises on the territory of Ukraine without the consent of the guarantor states, including Russia", Medinsky
"For its part, #Russia does not object to Ukraine's desire to join the EU.
These are #Ukraine's proposals, which we consider a constructive step, of course they are not enough to reach a compromise for now", Medinsky• • •
The bottom line is that these are simply Ukraine’s proposals, to one of which—Ukrainian desire to join the EU—Russia states that it has no objection. Beyond that, simply to achieve a ceasefire Ukraine is willing to concede fully neutral and non-nuclear status. Russia, on the other hand, gives the back of the hand to Ukrainian representations re Crimea and the Donbas and overall responds: Nice try for a first step, but it’s not good enough. In other words, the military “special operation” will continue as planned.