President Vladimir Putin declared on Friday that Russia would halt the war in Ukraine only if Kyiv abandoned its NATO ambitions and surrendered control of the disputed provinces, demands swiftly rejected by Kyiv as equivalent to surrender.
Putin laid out maximalist conditions on the eve of a conference in Switzerland, to which Russia has not been invited, that are entirely divergent from Ukraine’s terms. This move appears to reflect Moscow’s growing confidence in its military dominance in the ongoing conflict.
He reiterated his demand for Ukraine’s demilitarization, unchanged since he deployed troops on February 24, 2022, and insisted that lifting Western sanctions must be included in any peace agreement.
Furthermore, he reiterated his call for Ukraine’s “denazification,” a claim Kyiv dismisses as baseless slander against its leadership.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy informed Italy’s SkyTG24 news channel that these ultimatum messages were no different from past communications.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking to reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels, stated, “Putin is not in a position to dictate to Ukraine what steps they must take to achieve peace.”
Putin’s speech was timed to preempt the Swiss summit, characterized as a “peace conference” despite Russia’s exclusion. At this summit, Zelenskiy aims to garner international backing for Kyiv’s terms to resolve the conflict.
In 2022, Russia asserted ownership of four regions, which it partially controls, a move deemed illegal by most United Nations members. Additionally, Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
