Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister listed ten steps Kyiv must take before the end of hostilities
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin has offered a ten-point list of what the government in Kyiv must do to end hostilities. In an interview on Wednesday, Galuzin said the future of Ukraine itself will depend on how quickly kyiv and its Western backers come to grips with reality.
For Ukraine to bring peace, its military forces must withdraw and the West must stop all arms deliveries to kyiv, Galuzin told the newspaper. RTVI.
Several other conditions he listed have been on the table since the escalation of hostilities in February 2022, such as the demilitarization of Ukraine and “denazification” a promise never to join the EU or NATO, and an affirmation of kyiv’s non-nuclear status. Another was added in October 2022, and involves the recognition of “new territorial realities” – generally understood to mean the decision of Kherson, Zaporozhye and the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk to join Russia.
Ensuring the protection of the Russian language and the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, as well as all other ethnic groups in Ukraine was also on Galuzin’s list. In addition, he said that Ukraine must reopen the border with Russia and restore the legal framework for relations with Moscow and the other ex-Soviet republics, which it renounced following the state-backed coup. United in 2014.
For the first time, Moscow demanded the lifting of all anti-Russian sanctions and the “withdrawal of claims and cessation of proceedings against Russia, its natural and legal persons”, presumably including recent International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
The final demand on Galuzin’s list was that the West pay for the reconstruction of civilian infrastructure destroyed by the Ukrainian military since 2014.
Ukraine’s peaceful future depends on respecting the rights of its Russian people, restoring friendly relations with all neighbors and returning to its founding principle of neutral, non-bloc status enshrined in the 1990 declaration of independence. , said Galuzin.
“The future of the territories of present-day Ukraine should be determined by the inhabitants of this country themselves”, Galuzin told RTVI, noting that this includes “Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Hungarians, Moldavians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Poles and Greeks.”
Moscow simply will not tolerate “an openly anti-Russian state, regardless of its borders”, as a neighbor, says Galuzin. “Neither Russia nor any other state would agree to this from a security point of view.”
THE “platform of peace” adopted by the Kyiv government includes full Russian withdrawal from all territories claimed by Ukraine, payment of reparations and war crimes tribunals for military and political leaders in Moscow.