Putin’s Ukraine red line endangers peace accord

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia would not agree to a peace treaty with Ukraine unless the country committed to “resolve the issues of Crimea and Donbas” on a level at which Ukraine would lose parts of the territory.

Putin made the remarks at a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in the Kremlin to discuss resuming peace talks. However, Putin’s demand for Crimea and Donbas is precisely what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just stated would put an end to any suggested agreement.

Peace talks were interrupted after Ukraine accused Russia of committing war crimes by massacring citizens in villages around Kyiv. According to the Financial Times, a Kremlin spokeswoman indicated last week that a paper with conditions that Russia wants to be met before ending its strikes was sent to Ukraine, although Zelensky has stated that he did not receive such a document.

During a press conference on Saturday, Zelensky was asked how he would respond during peace talks if Russia pushed for prospective independence referendums in the eastern territories now occupied by Russian military forces. Zelensky stated that if such territorial criteria were demanded, the discussions would be terminated.

“If our people in Mariupol are killed, if pseudo-referendums are announced in the new pseudo-republics, Ukraine will withdraw from any negotiation process,” Zelensky said, according to The Kyiv Independent.

Along with talking about restarting peace negotiations, Guterres and Putin talked about humanitarian aid and evacuating civilians from combat zones. According to a UN statement, Putin agreed to let the UN and the Red Cross to work toward evacuating civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainians are fighting Russian soldiers.

Images and images from Tuesday’s meeting show Putin sitting at the same table he used while meeting foreign leaders prior to the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, and the two leaders sat far apart.

According to Axios and the Russian news agency TASS, Putin raised the issue of Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia in 2008. He asked Guterres if it would be equivalent to Donbas declaring independence from Ukraine and Moscow recognizing the deed, which prompted Guterres to state that the United Nations does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

Throughout his news conference on Saturday, Zelensky stated repeatedly that he is ready to hold face-to-face peace discussions with Putin. Although he said he didn’t want to meet with the Russian leader, Zelensky noted that “the war can be stopped by the person who started it.”

“I want to stop the war and end it. There is a diplomatic path and a military one. Any healthy person chooses the diplomatic path because he knows that even if it is difficult, it can prevent the loss of millions of people,” Zelensky said.

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