Incident on sidelines of Ukraine-Russia talks left negotiators with minor skin peeling and sore eyes

In an interview Sunday with Russian journalists, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at size about an necessary level in potential peace negotiations: the potential of neutrality for Ukraine. 

“We’re prepared to just accept this,” Zelensky mentioned. “That is an important level.”  

Zelensky and Ukrainian officers have lengthy mentioned they’re keen to speak about neutrality for Ukraine if NATO just isn’t prepared to just accept the nation as a member of the alliance. 

That, in concept, would meet one of many calls for of Russian President Vladimir Putin: that Ukraine offers up its NATO aspirations. 

However it’s not so simple as that. Zelensky has additionally made it clear that Ukraine would reject “neutrality” with out legally binding safety ensures. And with Ukraine beneath invasion by Russia, the Ukrainian chief has mentioned he isn’t enthusiastic about empty guarantees. 

“I am enthusiastic about ensuring it is not simply one other piece of paper a la the Budapest Memorandum,” he mentioned. 

Zelensky was referring to a little-remembered second in post-Chilly Warfare historical past. With the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine – on paper at the very least – got here into possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile.

Russia did preserve operational management of these weapons, however Ukraine signed an settlement in 1994 to surrender the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory in change for safety ensures, together with the safety of the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine. That’s one thing Russia, a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, decisively trampled on with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, has mentioned that safety ensures should, in essence, embrace a dedication from guarantors to help Ukraine within the occasion of aggression.  

And it’s necessary so as to add that neutrality – of a form that Putin may discover palatable – just isn’t one thing Zelensky can merely provide up. Aspiration to NATO membership is enshrined in Ukraine’s structure. 

That’s the place Zelensky gave Russian interviewers a little bit of a lesson in Ukraine’s democratic processes. Safety ensures, he defined, must be adopted by a referendum in Ukraine.  

“Why? As a result of we have now a regulation about referendums,” Zelensky mentioned. “We’ve handed it. Adjustments of this or that standing… And safety ensures presuppose constitutional adjustments. You perceive, do not you? Constitutional adjustments.” 

And therein lies the distinction. Russia has a political system constructed round one man — Putin — and Zelensky is the top of a democratic state. Even when neutrality is on the negotiating desk, the Ukrainian individuals must have their say.