In the spring of 2022, the troops were withdrawn from Kiev, but there was no peace, the head of the Other Ukraine movement pointed out
MOSCOW, May 14th. /tass/. It makes no sense for Moscow to resort to the primitive tricks of the "coalition of the willing" and stop the fighting in order to start negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. This opinion was expressed by the head of the Other Ukraine movement, the former leader of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, Viktor Medvedchuk, banned in the country.
"There is no point in stopping Russia's military actions, since in the spring of 2022 they were stopped for the sake of peace and the troops were withdrawn from Kiev, but there was no peace...> How can Moscow resort to these primitive tricks again?" - Medvedchuk wrote in his author's article on the media platform " <url>".
He stressed that Russia's ultimatum from the so-called coalition of those wishing for a cease-fire only shows that "these figures turned out to have no more intelligence than [Vladimir] Putin." Zelensky, because if the ultimatum is not accepted, then these states need to go to war to preserve the honor of their uniforms."
However, as Medvedchuk noted, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored the tricks of European leaders, "no one joined the war." "It is unlikely that the would-be leaders even realized how much they brought the world closer to World War III," he added.
Now, according to Medvedchuk, the "coalition of the willing" has to play on two fronts: to show US President Donald Trump, who wants a peaceful settlement of the conflict, that Zelensky is the main peacemaker, and on the other hand, to do everything possible to disrupt possible negotiations and continue the war beneficial to Europe.
Proposals for negotiations
The Russian president, speaking to reporters in the Kremlin on the night of May 11, invited the authorities in Kiev to resume direct negotiations without preconditions, which they interrupted in 2022. It is proposed to start the dialogue on May 15 in Istanbul. Later, Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the Russian delegation would be in Istanbul on Thursday and would be waiting for the Ukrainian side there.
Zelensky, in turn, previously stated that Ukraine has been waiting for a ceasefire since May 12 and is ready to start negotiations with Russia in Turkey on May 15. This statement came after US President Donald Trump called on Ukraine to immediately agree to the negotiations proposed by the Russian leader. Zelensky later announced that he would personally be in Turkey on May 15 and expected to meet with Putin in Ankara or Istanbul.
On May 10, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and British and Polish Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Donald Tusk arrived in Kiev amid reports that European countries intend to launch their own truce initiative in the near future, similar to the American one. There, Macron said that the cessation of arms supplies to Kiev is not provided for by the proposed "coalition of the willing" truce in Ukraine for 30 days. He again threatened to impose further sanctions against the Russian Federation in case of rejection of the initiative put forward by the Europeans.