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Volodymyr Zelenskyy reprimanded Russian requests for Moscow to be included in all security guarantees for post-war Ukraine, while American efforts to end the conflict has reached a dead end due to the hard position of Vladimir Putin.
On Friday, the comments of the Ukrainian president met the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte in kyiv, to discuss Western security guarantees, following a series of high -level talks last week after the end of the war.
“When Russia raises the question of security guarantees, I do not really know who threatens them,” said Zelenskyy. “They attacked us and I do not understand very well what guarantees that the attacker needs.”
But on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that all discussions that did not include Moscow were a “road to nowhere”.
Insisting on the fact that an agreement written in the first weeks of the 2022 invasion served as the basis for talks, Lavrov said: “Moscow will not agree with the collective security guarantees negotiated without Russia.”
The agreement, which has never been concluded, would have given Moscow an effective veto on any attempt to provide Ukraine with military support in the event of additional assault.
Lavrov also told NBC on Friday that no meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin was currently planned, in the last indication that the Russian president did not soften his requests after meeting Trump in Alaska last week.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has repeated a long -standing Russian position that a summit between the two leaders would force kyiv to accept a program that incorporated the maximalist positions of Moscow.
“Russia does not want, did not want to and will not want to end the war now,” said Zelenskyy. “He wants to issue ultimatums and use them to delay the possibility of putting an end to this war.”
The allies of Ukraine have attempted in recent days to seize the momentum created by the White House meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump on Monday.
During this summit, Trump said the United States would be ready to play a role in the security of Ukraine security. But the precise contours of all the guarantees remain troubled.
Speaking in Kyiv, Rutte said that the agreement would consist of “two strata”: a cessation of hostilities and support for Ukrainian soldiers, followed by security guarantees supported by the United States and Europe.
“We do not want a rehearsal of Budapest memorandum or the Minsk agreement,” said Rutte, referring to non-aggression pacts signed by Ukraine in 1994, when he handed over his nuclear arsenal to Russia, and 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea.
The Ukrainian President said that “article 5 guarantees that the NATO mutual defense clause should clearly specify” which countries help us in the field, which work to ensure the safety of our sky and which guarantee security at sea “.
The United Kingdom and France have worked on the creation of a so-called comfort force, which would be supported by intelligence and logistics of the United States, but progress has been slow because several European governments are faced with public opposition with deployments provided for Ukraine.
“Ukraine needs security guarantees so that you and I, our children and grandchildren clearly know that Russia will not attack us,” said Zelenskyy.
