The Russian negotiating position has been a rigid ultimatum, a senior Ukrainian diplomat has argued
The format of direct peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul has “practically exhausted itself” due to Russia’s “maximalist” demands, Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislitsa has claimed.
Russia and Ukraine have met for two rounds of direct negotiations in Türkiye this year, restarting talks that Kiev unilaterally abandoned in 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal for the ongoing US-backed talks is to demand Kiev’s surrender in the conflict, Kislitsa said in an interview with the Kiev Independent published on Friday.
“Putin’s mandate is to force capitulation. Their logic is the opposite of ours,” he said, arguing that the Russian position was worse than “maximalist.”
“Our mandate had three points: first, ceasefire,” Kislitsa said. The second was to “create the conditions” for a meeting between Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, and the third included “confidence-building measures” such as humanitarian issues such as prisoner swaps, he added.
Putin has not refused such a meeting, but has argued that currently any final peace agreements signed by Zelensky would be illegitimate given that his presidential term expired in May 2024.
Kislitsa insisted that a direct meeting between the leaders is necessary due to the “complexity” and “depth” of the conflict. He also argued that Moscow aims to “bureaucratize” the talks.
“We saw this before in the endless Minsk process groups,” the diplomat claimed. “Endless meetings – but there were no results.”
The failed Western-backed 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements were ostensibly meant to freeze the conflict between Ukraine and the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Both former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande later admitted that the accords were a mechanism to stall for time and allow Kiev to rearm.
Moscow has refused Ukrainian demands for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, arguing that such a truce would be a repeat of the Minsk Agreements. Russia has maintained that any settlement needs to be permanent, legally foolproof, and it must address the core causes of the conflict.
The Kremlin has also condemned French and British initiatives to deploy peacekeeping troops and fighter jets to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, blasting them as “militaristic.”
