Top Zelenskyy aide rejects 'peace treaty' floated in WSJ as total capitulation
The Wall Street Journal published a project of a "draft peace treaty" between Russia and Ukraine, which was developed in the spring of 2022. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the President's Office and a participant in the negotiations, said that there was no real possibility of reaching an agreement with Moscow.
The WSJ article states that the document provided for an end to hostilities, a ban on Ukraine joining NATO, a reduction of the Ukrainian army to 85,000 people, a ban on the supply of foreign weapons to Kyiv, recognition of the occupation of Crimea by Russians, and the functioning of the Russian language in government bodies on a par with Ukrainian.
In his Telegram channel, Podolyak wrote that Russia invaded Ukraine and began mass killing its citizens in order to seize territories and occupy the country.
He noted that during the first and subsequent rounds of negotiations in Belarus and Turkey, the Russian Federation ultimatum demanded the formal transfer of the occupied territories to it, as well as the relinquishment of subjectivity and the army.
"These conditions were constant. Where can we read here an offer of 'peace' and not total surrender? After the tactical defeats in the northern regions of Ukraine and the flight from Kyiv Oblast, massive facts of Russia's genocidal practices and its real intentions in Ukraine were revealed. This rendered any contacts impossible," said Podolyak.
The adviser to the head of the presidency stressed that there were no real opportunities to negotiate with Moscow, since it did not change the terms of surrender, which Ukraine categorically did not accept.
The representative of Zelenskyy's administration noted that Russia still wants to destroy Ukraine, but is looking for opportunities for a pause in the war in order to build up its forces and strike again on a larger scale.
"Why periodically return to a non-existent topic and try to pass off the known capitulation demands of Russia as something new, which definitely could not lead to "peace"?" he wrote.
On March 17, 2022, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu held talks in Turkey. Ankara was ready to consider the possibility of becoming a guarantor of Ukraine's security in the future.
On March 29, talks between representatives of Ukraine and Russia regarding the large-scale war took place in Turkey. They were opened by the President of Turkey.
Deputy Minister of Defense Ivan Havrylyuk said that the result of Russia's war against Ukraine should be Moscow's renunciation of nuclear weapons.