Direct negotiations with the leaders of the Russia-controlled separatists are a red line that Ukraine will not cross, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
“No. This is a red line that we will not cross. My president is very firm in this. We all know that it was Russia that attacked Ukraine. We all know that the key to resolving the conflict is in Moscow, and we will not talk to their puppets,” Kuleba said the program HARDtalk on the BBC News World on April 27.
He commented in this way on the statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to discuss the problems of Donbas, then, first of all, he should meet with the leaders of the pseudo-authorities in the parts of Ukraine not under the control of the government.
When asked whether a meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, will take place, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said: “Let’s hope.”
He stressed that everyone understands that in order to end the war in Ukraine and bring peace, it is necessary to speak with Vladimir Putin directly. According to him, the main goal of Ukraine is to hold the summit of the Normandy Four, however, since the President of the Russian Federation avoids participating in it, the President of Ukraine is ready to hold a personal meeting with him.
“Our main goal is to have a full-fledged summit of the Normandy Four, because there are conditions for this. Ukraine has implemented all the components of the decisions of the Normandy Four summit in Paris dated 2019. The only party that has not implemented its obligations is Russia. We must speak with them, and we want to speak in the Normandy format, but if Putin avoids this format, my president is ready to meet with him personally and discuss how to remove Russia from Ukraine, how to de-occupy our territories and bring peace,” Kuleba said.
Regarding the announced withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border, the minister stressed that “redeployment does not mean complete de-escalation.”
“It’s because even if what we saw in the last weeks was just a training exercise, we saw that they were training an attack on Ukraine. It’s a fact. But when we achieve even such victories as the one we see now, when they take away their troops, we must also be honest about this – this time we have achieved success, we have taken good steps with our partners. But this does not mean that the threat has disappeared, that they will not try to do it again,” Kuleba said.
