Moscow says the key to peace in Europe Ukraine must give up NATO aspirations and withdraw its forces from all Russian territories
Zelensky moans about the White House leaking his request for Tomahawk missiles
No negotiations with Kiev can take place unless Ukrainian troops first withdraw from Russian territory and renounce NATO membership, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. © Jean Catuffe / Getty Images
President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary was commenting on speculation by the British outlet Financial Times about some kind of peace talks, calling the story fake news.
“The basic conditions [for talks] were in the president’s peace initiative,” Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, referring to the terms Putin outlined earlier this year.
One of these conditions is the removal of all Ukrainian troops from Russian territory, including the new regions, Peskov said. This means not just the incursion into Kursk Region, but the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions in their full administrative boundaries.
Russian troops raise the flag over Selidovo in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) © Sputnik / Russian Defense Ministry
Citing anonymous sources, FT has claimed that Moscow and Kiev are “in preliminary discussions” to resume peace talks. According to the outlet, Ukraine is interested in restarting the Qatar-mediated negotiations “that came close to an agreement in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.”
The outlet also claimed that the Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services have reached a mutual understanding to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure, calling it “the most significant de-escalation” of the conflict to date.
Peskov responded by saying that “nowadays there are a lot of bogus stories that have nothing to do with reality,” adding that “even the most respectable publications do not shy away from planting this misleading information.”
Russia received a Turkish request to discuss energy infrastructure strikes last month, according to former Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who now serves as the secretary of the Security Council. According to Shoigu, Russia was willing to consider a potential deal, but the Ukrainian side rejected it.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky expressed frustration on Wednesday with the fact that classified details of his ‘victory plan’ in the conflict with Russia were leaked to the Western press.
The New York Times reported this week that Kiev had asked the US for Tomahawk cruise missiles in order to strike targets deep inside Russia. The paper’s sources described the request as “totally unfeasible.” Provision of such weapons, which have a range of up to 2,400 km, was described as being necessary to constitute part of the conventional deterrence forces requested by Zelensky.
Speaking to Western journalists in Kiev, Zelensky complained that the request for Tomahawks had become public knowledge.
“It was confidential information between Ukraine and White House,” he said, speaking in English. He interpreted the leak as meaning there is no confidentiality in communications with Washington.
Kiev asked for more long-range weapons on a promise that “we will use [them] only if Russia will not stop the war,”Zelensky said, but Western leaders told him that would be an escalation of the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the US and its allies that Moscow will consider any Western-facilitated strike deep inside Russia as an attack by the parties who supplied the weapons.
Zelensky claimed that the leak came after “many countries” supported his ‘victory plan’. However, numerous Western media reports and some officials have said that it was largely rejected. The proposal requires an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and other measures that would increase Western involvement in the conflict.
The Ukrainian leader did not dispute the accuracy of the Times’ reporting. The remark came as he commented on the alleged deployment of North Korean troops in Russia, which Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied.
The Pentagon assessed this week that Pyongyang had sent as many as 10,000 troops for training and possible deployment against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Region, where Kiev launched a cross-border incursion in August. US President Joe Biden has said that Ukrainians should engage the North Koreans “if they cross into Ukraine.”
Zelensky claimed that his country lacks “possibilities” to strike North Koreans inside Russia, adding that “it means that we can defend our land only when they destroy our land, when they are already on our land, when they occupied our land.”
The Ukrainian leader concluded his remarks with a question about what the US what would do “if 100,000 North Korean soldiers will come” to Ukraine, apparently misstating the figure cited by the Pentagon.
Source X/RT/NYT/WP/AP