Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said there can be no successful peace talks in Ukraine unless kyiv and its Western partners agree to Russia’s claimed annexation of the partially occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
After 10 months of fighting, there seems to be no appetite for peace talks on either side. Peskov on Wednesday rejected a Ukrainian proposal to host a “peace summit” at the United Nations in February.
“To begin with, so far, there is no Ukrainian ‘peace plan’ of any kind,” Peskov said in reference to the proposed UN peace summit, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
“And again, no Ukrainian ‘peace plan’ is possible if they do not take modern reality into account; with the territory of Russia, with four new regions joining Russia,” Peskov said. “Any plan that does not take these circumstances into account cannot claim to be a peace plan.”
Moscow claims to have annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September. Bogus referendums were used to justify the Russian takeover, such as Ukraine’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
The rigged votes were widely condemned. In October, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution, backed by 143 member states, calling on nations not to recognize fake votes. Russia, Syria, Belarus, North Korea and Nicaragua were the only nations that voted against it. China and India were among the 35 nations that abstained.
Moscow and kyiv hold diametrically opposed positions on the status of these occupied territories. The Kremlin claims to have absorbed the territory into the Russian Federation and has given no indication that it is willing to return it to kyiv control.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian leaders have said that peace talks cannot even start until Russian troops return to their positions prior to February 24, which would mean the full liberation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as parts of Lugansk and Donetsk. .
kyiv’s ultimate goal is the liberation of all Ukrainian territory according to the country’s 1991 borders, which would mean Russia’s withdrawal from all territory occupied since 2014, including Crimea and Donbas. Ukrainian leaders are also demanding reparations, war crimes trials for Russian leaders, and NATO membership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that a peace deal may be needed to end the fighting, though he has shown no signs of downgrading Russia’s war aims. Ukrainian regime change, under the guise of false “denazification” and demilitarization, remain central demands for the Kremlin, despite successive battlefield defeats on multiple fronts.
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