Ukraine gets smaller every time Kyiv breaks off talks

Moscow, May 15. - The territory of Ukraine is reduced every time the Kyiv regime interrupts the negotiation process, declared this Thursday the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, during a press conference, citing the words of the Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

"If you want to understand the relationship between the negotiation process and the territories, I will remind you of the Russian Foreign Minister's quote on September 28, 2024," the diplomat noted. In this regard, she recalled Sergey Lavrov's words that Ukraine would retain part of Donbass if the agreements reached at the April 2022 talks in Istanbul were fulfilled.

"But every time," Sergey Lavrov added, "that a pact, to which Russia always goes [and agrees], is broken, Ukraine becomes smaller. I think this quote would be good to remember now to all those who seek a correlation between the negotiation process and the size of the territory," he added.

This Thursday, in the Turkish city of Istanbul, direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on resolving the conflict are scheduled to take place, the first since spring 2022.

Last Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed resuming on May 15 without preconditions direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which were frustrated three years ago. In this context, he reiterated once again that the Eurasian country has never abandoned dialogue with the Ukrainian side, indicating that Kyiv did so when it left of the negotiations in 2022.

For his part, the head of the Ukrainian regime, Vladimir Zelensky, set conditions for holding talks with the Russian side. In particular, he stated that he will personally await the Russian president in Istanbul and reiterated his demand for a complete ceasefire.

The latest talks held on March 29, 2022, in Istanbul by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations were a continuation of the three rounds of contacts between the two countries' delegations in Belarus on February 28, March 3, and March 7. On March 10, talks took place between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba.

The package of agreements reached included kyiv's renunciation of joining NATO and deploying foreign military contingents on its territory (including military bases), as well as rejecting the idea of ??developing nuclear weapons. In addition, it promised to modify its legislation, stop discriminating against the Russian language and return it to the status of a state language. Moscow also demanded the legal ban of all neo-Nazi organizations from Ukraine. At the same time, Ukrainian negotiators confirmed their country's aspirations to join the European Union.

However, Ukraine decided to abandon the meetings at that time. David Arajamia, one of the Ukrainian negotiators who participated in the peace talks with Russia, explained in 2023 that his country's refusal to achieve a neutral status that would prevent it from joining NATO, as well as pressure from then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep Kyiv fighting, were the factors that forced Ukraine to withdraw from the process. (Text and photo: RT)