Negotiations with Ukraine are Difficult and Slow: Medinsky

Negotiations with Ukraine are difficult and slow, but Russia sincerely seeks to achieve peace as quickly as possible. This statement was made by Vladimir Medinsky, assistant to the President of Russia and head of the Russian delegation.

“Of course, we would like everything to happen much faster; this is the sincere desire of the Russian side. We want to achieve peace as soon as possible,” he said.

According to Medinsky, the main task of the negotiation group is to find areas where it is possible to reach an agreement amidst numerous complex issues, to build on those agreements, remove those common issues from the agenda, and gradually, step by step, reach results towards establishing peace.

Medinsky mentioned that he does not want to focus on the difficulties arising in the negotiation process. “Believe me, our state's aspiration, and the task set by the President, is to achieve peace on Ukrainian territory; it is a peaceful, neutral, friendly state that is not a NATO platform, nor a stronghold of forces that want to harm our country... We need a peaceful, free, neutral, and independent Ukraine. We want the agreement to be for future generations, so that our children can live in peace,” he emphasized.

Medinsky stated that Ukraine is proposing an Austrian or Swedish model of neutrality for its own demilitarized state with its armed forces during the negotiations. Additionally, statements from Kyiv about removing the denazification point from the agenda of the negotiations do not align with reality.

“The topic of denazification and the tightening of punishment, primarily for the glorification of Nazism, neonazism, and the topic of punishment for extremism, remains an important point on the agenda,” said the assistant to the President of Russia.

Medinsky explained why it was decided to conduct the negotiations online. “Because logistics are very complicated, we decided to save time and resources, avoid traveling overnight to Belarus, and limit ourselves to daily work in a video conference format,” he said.