Zelenskyy: Lifting of Russian sanctions not up for discussion

Kateryna Tyshchenko – Monday, 2 May 2022, 18:00

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has refuted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s statement that the lifting of sanctions on Russia is being discussed in the talks between the two countries.

Source: President Zelenskyy in an interview for ERT [Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, the Greek public radio and television broadcaster]

According to Zelenskyy: "This information shared by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs is new to me. The matter of lifting the sanctions has not been raised and cannot be raised in any agreements which have not even been reached yet and are being discussed by the [two] groups, the representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations."

Details: The President stressed that sanctions were initially imposed on Russia in response to its illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, then for its occupation of part of Donbas, and finally for the full-scale aggression against Ukraine which Russia initiated on 24 February 2022.

According to Zelenskyy: "This is why robust sanctions have been imposed [on Russia]: because of the killings, the occupation, the illegal invasion. The war is still not over, we have still not regained our territories. Unfortunately Russia still remains where it is – on our land - and continues to exert pressure on us. None of this is over yet. I am actually quite surprised that the question of lifting sanctions came up at all."

Earlier: On 30 April Sergei Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, claimed that the question of lifting Western sanctions on Russia was being discussed during the talks between Ukraine and Russia. He also suggested that the questions of the so-called "denazification" and the status of the Russian language in Ukraine were being discussed.

Mykhailo Podoliak, a member of Ukraine’s negotiating team, denied that the question of lifting sanctions against Russia was discussed during the negotiations.