Russia Demands More Ukrainian Territory Clouding Peace Summit
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Kyiv give up more land, withdraw troops deeper inside its own country, and drop efforts to join the NATO military alliance to end the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s fresh ceasefire demands were issued as envoys from more than 90 countries, including Ukraine, convene in Switzerland this weekend to discuss a Western-led peace plan.
Russia is not invited to the conference, and Putin’s remarks on Friday are likely to have been timed as a spoiler to that summit.
Speaking to diplomats at the Russian foreign ministry, Putin publicly updated his terms for ending the war in Ukraine for the first time since he launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, when he demanded regime change in Kyiv and the country’s “demilitarisation.”
The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Putin was in no position to make demands on Ukraine and could end the war he had started “today if he chose to do that.”
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the offer could not be trusted and Putin would not stop his military offensive even if his ceasefire demands were met.
HISTORY MADE?
Despite Russia’s absence from the summit at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne, Zelenskyy predicted at the outset that the talks would lead to “history being made.”
“We have succeeded in bringing back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace,” he told reporters alongside Swiss President Viola Amherd.
While addressing the conference later, Zelenskyy said the summit could lay the groundwork for an eventual end to the conflict.
“At the first peace summit, we must determine how to achieve a just peace so that at the second, we can already settle on a real end to the war,” he added.
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and injured in Europe’s deadliest armed conflict since World War Two.
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