Russia rejects new Ukrainian proposal for peace talks
As the battle for Ukraine turns into a bloody, mile- by-mile fight in numbing cold, Ukrainian and Russian officials have insisted that they are willing to discuss making peace. But it is increasingly clear that both sides’ demands even to start talks are flatly unac- ceptable to the other, lead- ing American and European officials to conclude that serious discussions on ending the war are unlikely in the near future.
There have been no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia since the early weeks of the conflict, which began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24. This week, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, detailed a proposal for a “peace” summit by the end of February, but told The Associated Press that Kyiv would negotiate with Moscow only if Russia first faced a war-crimes tribunal.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, responded that Kyiv would have to accept Moscow’s demands — including giving up the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in September — or else “the Russian Army will deal with this issue.”
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said Wednesday that “there cannot be a peace plan for Ukraine that does not take into account today’s realities with Russian territory,” including the four annexed regions, according to the Interfax news agency.
Stella Ghervas, a professor of Russian history at Newcastle University in Britain, said that “the Ukrainian proposal offers a glimpse at Ukraine’s vision of how the war with Russia could one day end.” But, she said, “Lavrov’s reaction is not very promising .... ”
The hard-line positions suggest both sides believe they have more to gain militarily. Ukraine holds the battlefield momentum, having retaken much of the land that Russia captured early in the war, but Moscow’s forces still occupy large chunks of the east and south.