New Delhi: Russia will put forward tougher conditions in terms of both substance and time if talks with Ukraine are resumed, Leonid Slutsky, leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and a member of the Russian delegation to the talks with Ukraine, said on Tuesday.
“Today the conditions from our side will be tougher both on demilitarization and denazification, tougher and in time of their execution. I emphasize that this is if the negotiation process is resumed,” Slutsky said at a press conference.
“So far, Kyiv officials have not shown any willingness to resume talks,” he added.
Earlier, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said that Moscow did not see any interest on the part of Kyiv and the West in resuming Russian-Ukrainian talks, but warned that the conditions for such contacts would already be different. Ushakov also recalled that the Russian-Ukrainian talks were interrupted “after the principled agreement regarding the Istanbul agreements.”
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the heads of the Donbas republics. After that, the US, the EU, the UK, as well as some other states, imposed large-scale sanctions against Russia and increased arms supplies to the Ukrainian authorities.
(Vinayak)