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Ukrainian members of parliament say Russia peace talks are not real
“At this explicit second, these peace negotiations are removed from actual negotiations,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, who chairs Ukraine’s Parliamentary Committee on Integration of Ukraine to the European Union, advised a small group of reporters at a roundtable hosted by the German Marshall Fund suppose tank.
“Undoubtedly, I believe that Putin is utilizing this as a smokescreen, shopping for time to regroup … and sending false, mendacity messages to the entire world,” she stated.
“We really feel these should not actual peace talks at this level,” stated MP Anastasia Radina, who heads the parliament’s Committee on Anti-Corruption Coverage. “We really feel that what Russia is doing is making an attempt to avoid wasting face. They are saying they’re withdrawing troops from Kiev area. That is not true for one easy cause. They are not withdrawing. … They had been kicked (out).”
Radina stated there may be solely “a method out of the battle, and that’s for Ukraine to win.”
Their remarks got here in the future after the Russian Ministry of Protection stated that it had determined to “drastically cut back hostilities” round Kyiv and Chernihiv. US officers, together with President Joe Biden, stay skeptical of the announcement.
“We’ll see,” Biden stated on Tuesday when requested about Russia’s claims. “I do not learn something into it till I see what their actions are. We’ll see in the event that they observe by on what they’re suggesting.”
Extra weapons wanted
“Correct motion for Ukraine proper now, for assist to Ukraine proper now, can be weaponry,” Radina stated. “Ukraine is continually asking for weaponry and never solely defensive weaponry, but additionally offensive weaponry. In our scenario, this distinction between defensive and offensive is, frankly talking, humiliating. In our scenario, all weapons are defensive as a result of we’re defending our lands.”
Radina reiterated that Ukraine wants fighter jets, “as a result of that is how we are able to truly cease bombings. … And as of now that is the problem on the desk, and whereas it’s on the desk, individuals will proceed struggling.”
“Our ‘humanitarian support’ is weapons,” stated MP Maria Ionova. “As a result of to attenuate these victims and casualties, we now have to defend our air. Freedom needs to be armed. And that’s the reason our foremost message right here is please, assist us to defend our future and the way forward for the democratic world.”
‘Neutrality will not be an choice for Ukraine’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled that Ukraine is likely to be prepared to forgo NATO membership and decide to neutrality if the West gives Ukraine with stable safety ensures. However such a transfer must be put to a referendum — and Klympush-Tsintsadze indicated that something wanting NATO membership needs to be rejected.
“Neutrality will not be an choice for Ukraine,” she stated. “I need everyone to grasp we had been non-aligned. We had been a non-bloc nation again in 2014. It didn’t preclude Putin from attacking us at that time. And it didn’t preclude him from grabbing a part of our territory. So it won’t cease him. Even when we write on all of the papers, throughout, that we’re impartial. He simply will not be curious about us current as such.”
Radina echoed these feedback, saying that “absolute neutrality will not be an choice for Ukraine,” as a result of Russia will all the time border the nation and intention to “obliterate” Ukraine from the map.
“So sure, we’re on the lookout for workable safety ensures and never simply one other Budapest Memorandum,” she stated.
The UK, US, and Russia signed that memorandum — which was supposed to ban these nations from utilizing navy drive towards Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan — in trade for them giving up their nuclear weapons.
Zelensky advised the Munich Safety Convention final month that Ukraine “has tried thrice” since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, “to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. 3 times with out success.”