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Ukraine insists on territorial integrity as talks loom
STORY: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Sunday he was ready to move forward with a peace deal with Russia but insisted on territorial integrity of his country- after suggesting earlier he was ready for a compromise. “We have a new round of negotiations ahead. Because we seek peace – really. Without delays. I am informed that there is an opportunity and need for a face-to-face meeting… in the territory of Turkey, which is not bad. We will look at the result. Our priorities in the negotiations are known: the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine are beyond doubt. Effective guarantees of security for our country are mandatory. Zelenskiy’s remarks to Ukrainians came ahead of planned peace talks with Russia, to be held in person in Turkey from Monday to Wednesday. Earlier in the day Zelenskiy spoke to Russian journalists, in a video interview the Kremlin had pre-emptively warned Russian media to refrain from reporting. However in that call, he’d adopted a different tone… saying his country was ready to discuss a ‘neutral stance’ as part of peace deal with Russia, and compromise over the status of the eastern Donbas region. He spoke to the journalists in Russian: “Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it.” He said he would refuse to discuss certain demands from Moscow, such as the so-called “denazification” of Ukraine. And dismissed its claims that his country had any nuclear or chemical weapon, saying, “It is a joke. There is nothing to say. There aren’t any.” After more than four weeks of conflict, Russia has failed to seize any major Ukrainian city and signalled on Friday it was scaling back its ambitions to focus on securing the Donbas region. Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian army there for the past eight years. Moscow says the goals for what Putin calls a “special military operation” include demilitarising and “denazifying” its neighbour.Ukraine and its Western allies call this a pretext for unprovoked invasion.
