The Minister of Foreign Affairs of rf Serhiy Lavrov has stated that the draft agreement submitted by Ukraine “includes derogations from the provisions, committed at the meeting in Istanbul”.
This was reported by RIA Novosti.
According to Lavrov, earlier Ukraine had promised that security guarantees wouldn’t be applied to Crimea, but the new version of the Agreement doesn’t include this point.
Furthermore, Ukraine suggests discussing the issue of Crimea and Donbas at the meeting of the leaders of the two countries, however, this intention is unacceptable, the Head of MFA of russia said.
On 1 April Lavrov stated that russia is working on the answer to Ukraine’s peace treaty proposals. The Head of russian MFA said that there is a “progression” on the neutral status of Ukraine in the proposals.
“We have noticed a much better understanding of another reality, the situation with Crimea and Donbas,” he said.
The last face-to-face round of negotiations between Ukraine and russia was held in Istanbul on 29 March. Ukraine has suggested that countries-members of the UN Security Council (Great Britain, China, russia, USA, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel) should provide security guarantees for Ukraine similar to NATO collective security. In particular, in case of new aggression toward Ukraine, guarantor states within three days have to provide military aid, weapons and create a no-fly zone.
The Ukrainian side in the negotiations with russia is suggesting that the Crimea issue should be settled by bilateral negotiations within no longer than 15 years. Military solution probability is eliminated.
At the same time, Putin’s spokesman Dmytro Pieskov said that Crimea would not be a subject of negotiations with Ukraine as an occupant country considers the Ukrainian land captured in 2014 as its own.
On 1 April Ukrainian and russian groups of negotiation continued negotiations.
The next day the head of the Ukrainian delegation, “Servant of the People” party leader Davyd Arakhamia stated that during negotiations russia has agreed on all proposals of Ukraine except Crimea.
On 29 March russia suggested holding a meeting of presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Volodymyr Putin along with the peace treaty signing. The peace treaty must be signed by the heads of MFAs of both countries.