““He offered Ukraine to surrender, to change the direction of development… And this person says that these are some kind of agreements. Just an old fantasist. He lives in another world, in his aquarium””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“I am generally surprised that he is ready for something there. He keeps saying I’m illegitimate, or whatever they say. As for the Istanbul Agreements, which never existed, but was the ultimatum of the Russian Federation on the very first day of the occupation of our country in 2022. Their messengers in different directions, using different sources, showed us the details of this ultimatum. There are no such messengers in Ukraine. they have already fled to Russia or abroad. In any case, Ukraine did not agree to the ultimatum of the Russian Federation,” he said, answering RFE/RL’s questions.
According to him, the Russian side tried to take the next steps, to soften its position in relation to this ultimatum.
“Ukraine did not sign anything, no agreements existed. This was a response to the ultimatum of the Russian Federation. Demilitarization, denazification? The main Nazi on the planet today, Putin, is talking about the denazification of Ukrainians. Demilitarization, further, so that the army of Ukraine does not exist, or something was said about 40-50 thousand. That is, he simply offered Ukraine to surrender, freeze the conflict, change the direction of development – neither Europe nor NATO, but the direction to the Russian Federation, so that they rule our state, deprive us of our independence. And it is this person who says that these are some kind of agreements. Just an old fantasist. Well, realistically, he lives in another world, in his aquarium,” Zelenskyy added.
Read also: From Minsk to Istanbul. Has Ukraine learned the lesson of the Minsk Protocol regarding negotiations with Russia
Today, during a press conference, Vladimir Putin said that Russia agrees to negotiations with Ukraine, taking into account the so-called Istanbul agreements and current realities.
“We have no preconditions. We are ready to conduct a dialogue without preconditions, but on the basis of what we have agreed on – I have already said this a hundred times – during the negotiation process in Istanbul in 2022, but also based on the realities that are developing on the ground today,”– he said, at the same time calling Zelensky illegitimate and declaring that Moscow is ready to sign any agreements only with the Verkhovna Rada.
RFE/RL has obtained a draft of the treaty Moscow offered Ukraine in the early days of a full-scale invasion in 2022. The draft, titled “Treaty on the Settlement of the Situation in Ukraine and the Neutrality of Ukraine,” is dated March 7, 2022, 11 days after Russia launched its invasion and a week after the start of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
After the Russian army went on the offensive on almost all sections of the common border with Ukraine, Russia proposed a treaty, the unilateral terms of which meant the capitulation of Kyiv.
The project, among other things, provided for Ukraine to reduce its army to 50,000 people, including 1,500 officers (this is five times less than Ukraine had by 2022).