Ukraine rejected as "manipulative" and "absurd" the proposal for a cease-fire presented today by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, which is based on the idea that Kiev should start withdrawing its troops from four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Moscow in 2022. and yes - abandon plans to join NATO.
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On the eve of the summit of world leaders in Switzerland on Ukraine, to which Moscow was not invited, Putin announced this proposal and promised that he would "immediately" order a ceasefire if his conditions were met.
In its invasion in February 2022, Russia occupied parts of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporozhye regions in the east and southeast of Ukraine. It then declared the annexation of not only the occupied parts of those areas, but also those that Ukraine still controls, such as the city of Zaporizhzhia, or retook them in combat operations, such as the city of Kherson.
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Putin's plan "manipulative" and "absurd" and designed to "deceive the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts to achieve a just peace, and break the unity of the majority of the world around the goals and principles of the United Nations charter."
Ukraine wants to join NATO, for Russian troops to leave not only the territories conquered in the war, but also those parts of it that Russia annexed in 2014, namely Crimea, for Russia to be made responsible for war crimes and to pay Kiev war reparations.
Mihajlo Podoljak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote on the X social network that there is nothing new in Putin's proposal, and that it "expresses only the 'standard aggressor package' that has already been heard many times."
"There is nothing new here, there are no real peace proposals, and there is no desire to end the war. But there is a desire not to pay for this war, and to continue it in new forms. It is a complete charade," said Podoljak.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told NATO headquarters in Brussels that Putin has "illegally occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory" and that he is "in no position to dictate to Ukraine what it must do to achieve peace".
He also said that Putin "started a war without provocation" and that he "can end that war today if he so chooses."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg followed it up with the assessment that what Putin is offering "is not a peace proposal" but "a proposal for additional aggression, additional occupation" and that it "somehow demonstrates that Russia's goal is to control Ukraine."
In order to achieve complete peace, Putin put forward more demands: that Ukraine recognizes that Crimea is part of Russia, that it maintains its non-nuclear status, that it limits its forces, that it protects the interests of the Russian-speaking population, that all of this becomes part of "fundamental international agreements" and that all Western sanctions against Russia are withdrawn.
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