President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has mocked suggestions that Russia start negotiations with Ukraine's new government and that Western countries broker such talks.
“It’s pretty interesting that there are now appeals to Russia from Europe to hold negotiations with the people from Kyiv who call themselves the Ukrainian authorities with the mediation of Western countries. One can only just smile at that. Because, of course, any credit of confidence in those ‘guarantors’ in inverted commas has probably been lost after what happened to the document signed by [Viktor] Yanukovych in Kyiv [an agreement of February 21 between Yanukovych and the opposition],” Dmitry Peskov said in a program on Friday on Russia’s Rossiya 1 television.
“It’s true that the situation is very complicated,” but the West should “take a sober-minded look” at that situation and “ask itself who you’ve been in a hurry to recognize as the legitimate government in Ukraine,” Peskov said.
“We hope that this will happen sooner or later, and we sincerely wish our partners in the West put that question to themselves,” the spokesman said.
