Yalta European Strategy Forum: Defence Minister Reznikov answers Western partners about terms of negotiations with Russia

EUROPEAN PRAVDA — SATURDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER 2022, 23:35

Kyiv is not accepting Western partners’ recommendations to start "peace" talks with the Russian Federation and demands a complete end to the occupation of Donbas and Crimea.

European Pravda reports this in the article "Yalta forum is close, Negotiations with Russia currently impossible" covering the Yalta European Strategy forum (YES), which was secretly held in Kyiv.

EP found out that the other day, during a visit to Kyiv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had conveyed Joe Biden’s message about the need to start negotiations with Putin.

Several Ukrainian officials publicly denied such a possibility during the YES forum, although they refused to say which of the partners gave these recommendations.

"We have learned a lot [during the war], including learning not to trust any offers of peace talks proposed to us by our partners," Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.

Reznikov also clarified Ukraine's position on the conditions for starting negotiations with the Russian Federation, adding that this was a new position. Kyiv will no longer agree to the terms that Kyiv themselves offered to the Russians earlier.

"I will reveal a secret... [At the negotiations in Belarus and Istanbul – ed.] we told the Russians: in order to continue the talks and come to agreements, you must withdraw the troops [that entered Ukraine] after 23 February. It was possible then. But now they have crossed more than one point of no return and such an option has no longer been possible for a while," he declared.

Now Kyiv demands a complete end to the occupation of Donbas and Crimea. "The options ‘as of 24 February’ no longer exist. It must be as of 1 December 1991 [Ukraine’s internationally recognised state borders]. Go out," concluded Reznikov [Reznikov used English when saying the words "Go out" - ed.].

Read more in the article "Yalta is close, Negotiations with Russia currently impossible." (How Zelenskyy answered the US at the secret YES forum.)

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