Head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin has reiterated Russia’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine.
Russian state news agency, TASS quoted Naryshkin as saying that Ukraine must renounce its ambition to join NATO and give up territories annexed by Moscow if the war is to end.
“The conditions of the peace agreement naturally include a nuclear-free, neutral status for Ukraine, demilitarisation and denasification of the Ukrainian state and the abolition of all discriminatory laws passed after the 2014 coup,’’ Naryshkin said, referring to the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych in the wake of pro-Western protests.
A peace deal, Naryshkin continued, must also include “recognition of the sovereignty and territorial borders of the Russian Federation – the current territorial borders.’’
Following Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014, Russia also illegally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.
However, Russia did not fully control any of the territories except Crimea.
Naryshkin praised the fact that dialogue between Russia and America on a potential end to the war has resumed.
Speaking during a visit to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Naryshkin said Russia and Belarus, which also shares border with Poland, arw seeing an increase of NATO activities on their borders.
Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov noted that Russia and America are working hard on a peaceful solution for Ukraine, but accused Europe of being interested in continuing the war by supplying weapons to Ukraine.
The European Union, EU, and Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenksy have rejected this postulation and emphasised that they are striving for peace through strength. (dpa/NAN)
