Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, announced on Wednesday that the Russian government had sent a draft agreement for reaching peace with Ukraine. He added that the “ball is in Ukraine’s court.”
“The ball is in their court; we are awaiting their response,” said the spokesperson. He said it was up to the Ukrainian government the time estimated to get a response on the document. “Ukrainians are not showing much inclination toward intensifying the negotiating process,” he added. Peskov took the chance to highlight that the Ukrainian side had continuously failed to comply with the previously reached agreement, saying that these actions are “having very bad consequences in terms of the negotiations’ effectiveness.”
Following Peskov’s statement, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that the Kremlin had lost trust in the Ukrainian negotiators. She has said that the Russian side must verify the matter “because we haven’t had any trust in these people for a long time,” she explained to Rossiya 24 news channel with a Russian proverb ‘trust, but verify.’ The spokeswoman suggested that Ukrainian decisions have been controlled from the outside.
Zakharova labeled the Ukrainian handling of the round of talks as a “circus,” as they had continuously changed their position. She said that there is a possibility that Kiev’s participation in peace negotiations could represent nothing more than a diversionary tactic, adding that, however, Moscow is “ready for that,” seeing what has resulted from the Minsk agreement.
#Russia has handed over a draft peace document to #Ukraine. “The Ukrainian side was handed a draft #peace document with clear wording in it. Now the ball is on the side of #Kyiv. Moscow is waiting for a reaction,” #Peskov said.#WARINUKRAINE https://t.co/BpU0UajpEf
— DIP (@dip_org_ua) April 20, 2022
Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict, both nations have celebrated several rounds of talks for negotiating peace on the crisis. Following the latest meeting held on March 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced that peace negotiations had reached a deadlock as the Ukrainian side had refused to comply with Russia’s key demands.
Russian leader’s comments on the issue came as the Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov said that Kiev presented a new written proposal that did not coincide with the previous statement made during the negotiations and did not mention the security guarantees Kiev wanted to obtain did not cover Crimea.
At a Tuesday briefing Alexey Arestovich, Ukrainian presidential adviser, adverted the possibilities of a halt to peace talks with Russia if Moscow’s troops take over Mariupol city, a strategically valuable port on the Black Sea. Mikhail Podolyak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podolyak, announced that the resumption of talks is yet to be scheduled.
