Presidential Advisor: Peace negotiations may take up to several weeks
Olena Roschina – Saturday, 19 March 2022, 08:48
Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the President of Ukraine, said that peace negotiations with Russia may take at least "several weeks," despite signs that Moscow’s position is becoming more "adequate."
Source: Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the President of Ukraine, in an interview for Bloomberg TV on Friday 18 March
Details: Key questions that are being negotiated include security guarantees, a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops, and "a political settlement of the disputed territories," Podoliak said.
"This process may take longer," Podoliak said, given the number of mutually exclusive positions.
"There are some concessions that we are definitely not going to make. We cannot give up any territories," he assured, as one of the negotiators.
While a full peace accord could take longer, "what could happen in a few days is a ceasefire" that will enable more humanitarian corridors to open up, according to Podoliak.
The Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine said that "the Russian army is not at war with the Ukrainian army – they are at war only with civilians."
According to him, the Russian army is using the tactics of "surrounding large cities and attacking them with cruise missiles and air bombs in order to create humanitarian enclaves."
"They are trying to implement the Syrian or Afghan war scenario in Ukraine," Podoliak said.
Background: Russia has denied any plans to invade Ukraine before it deployed troops, and now says it is destroying only military infrastructure, although in reality it is also attacking residential neighbourhoods and laying siege to entire cities.
In Mariupol, for example, about 80% of the city’s housing stock has been destroyed by Russian attacks, 50-100 bombs are dropped on the city every day, and Mariupol residents cannot leave the city, hiding in basements and bomb shelters. Only 40,000 people have been able to leave out of the city’s 350,000-strong population.
