Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said he is receiving many signals from Europe and the United States about the war in Ukraine and has appealed to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin with a request to freeze the war.
“You know, in my view, from the very beginning I said this is an interstate conflict, an interstate one. This is not about some kind of civil war. We have always treated the Ukrainian people, their culture and language with respect. And we believe that the nature of this conflict is not entirely clear to many, including to us,” Tokayev said at a meeting with Putin.
Kazakhstan’s leader expressed the view that the fighting should be frozen and that the parties should return to the “Istanbul formula 2.0” under guarantees from leading world powers.
“...Perhaps this conflict should already be frozen and we should return to the Istanbul formula 2.0, since significant results were achieved there, and then, naturally, under guarantees from major powers, including Russia,” Tokayev concluded.
- Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that the so-called “Istanbul agreements” do not exist in reality and are “the senile fantasies” of Vladimir Putin.
- In the first weeks after the start of the full-scale war, Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for talks in Belarus and Turkey. The talks did not end in success, and the Russians did not stop committing war crimes during the negotiation process. Ukraine rejected the possibility of negotiations with Putin and said that talks on ending the war can only take place in line with Ukraine’s peace formula.
- At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported that it had gained access to a draft agreement between Ukraine and Russia that was not signed. According to it, Ukraine would have to secure "permanent neutral status without participation in military blocs," while control over Crimea would be assigned to Russia.