The road to the peace in Ukraine it’s anything but downhill. The victory in the presidential elections of Donald Trump certainly has a positive effect on the chances of reaching a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev, but the Russian president Vladimir Putin he has no intention of compromising. Despite various appreciations for the tycoon’s positions, the Kremlin leader yesterday effectively disavowed the suggestion from the president-elect’s team to put an end to the war in Ukraine and which envisaged delay Ukraine’s membership of NATO at least 10 or 20 years.
As highlighted by the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Putin yesterday responded to a specific question by saying that “it does not matter whether Ukraine joins NATO today, tomorrow or in ten years”. This last sentence would reiterate his I refuse to consider compromising on his demands of late 2021 and early 2022, which envisaged that Ukraine would become a permanent neutral state and would never join NATO, with the addition of imposing severe limitations on the size of the Ukrainian army and the removal of the Ukrainian government.
“Russia try to end the conflict, not freeze it” Putin specified when responding to journalists on the plans for peace. Moscow wants to achieve its goals and then finally stop the fighting, the Russian president added: “Of course, we start from the fact that we will complete all the tasks of the special military operation. This is generally task number one. We will achieve success on the front lines.” And pay attention to the steps forward from a diplomatic point of view.
In fact, Putin has not closed the possibility of peace talks Slovakiaa place offered by Prime Minister Robert Fico. “Slovakia is ready,” declared the Russian president, explaining that with Fico “we mainly talked about a peace agreement in Ukraine”. An important message, even if it arrived in the aftermath of the brutal attack launched in Ukraine in the early hours of Christmas morning: 170 missiles and drones that caused one death and extensive damage to the electricity infrastructure.
In the meantime the war on the field continues. Kiev’s decision-making centers could be targets of Russia’s attacks depending on existing threats, but Moscow never strikes civilian structures: this is what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with domestic and foreign media. “We select targets for attacks on the territory of Ukraine, proceeding solely based on threats to Russia. These can be military facilities and defense companies. Even the decision-making centers in Kiev can be such targets” the words of the top Russian diplomat: “But it is not in our rules to launch retaliatory attacks on civilian targets. These are the rules of the Nazis who have entrenched themselves in Kiev with the support of the West and these are the rules of those who supply them with weapons to simply destroy civil and civilian infrastructure.”
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