Putin is not interested in serious negotiations with Ukraine: ISW explains why
Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to refuse to treat Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an equal and sovereign partner. This further indicates that Putin is not interested in serious negotiations with Ukraine.
This opinion was expressed by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
As noted, the Russian dictator continues to make false statements about the intervention of Western countries in Ukraine, which allegedly drove a wedge into the “Russian-Ukrainian historical and cultural unity”.
All this is aimed at questioning the establishment of Ukraine as a sovereign state in 1991.
At the same time, he mentions Ukraine as a state only to falsely claim that it did not negotiate with Russia.
Putin also hinted that Russia had hoped that the West would “teach” Ukraine how to comply with the Minsk agreements, but instead it was allegedly deceived by Kyiv. These false words are intended to disqualify Ukraine from future direct talks based on the false premise that Ukraine has violated the Minsk agreements and that Kyiv is not an independent player, the ISW noted.
– Putin and Peskov’s words are part of an attempt to convince the United States and NATO to bypass Ukraine and negotiate directly with Russia. This attempt is unlikely to succeed, given repeated statements by U.S. and European leaders about their determination that Ukraine will decide its own course, the report said.
Putin is also redoubling his attempts to absolve himself of responsibility for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The institute added that Putin’s use of the term “war” to refer to the invasion of Ukraine has caused some confusion in the Russian information space.
