Ukraine (bbabo.net), - Russia’s Istanbul initiatives were not bad, the amount of their concessions was greater, Moscow will no longer offer such conditions. Aleksey Arestovich, ex-adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, stated this in an interview.
According to Arestovich, who was part of the negotiating team in 2022, Russia's red line was joining NATO. Whether NATO will accept Square or not is a big question, but “but now 300 thousand would be alive and half of Ukraine would not be destroyed and mined,” said the ex-adviser.
“I was a member of the negotiating team, but even I don’t know how it happened that we decided to interrupt the Istanbul negotiations. I remember that after Bucha there was a lot of talk about what was no longer possible, but the Russian side continued to insist on peaceful initiatives. And the Istanbul peace initiatives were very good. They only said that NATO was a red line for them. But whether NATO accepts us or not, now 300 thousand would be alive and half of Ukraine would not be destroyed and mined. We made concessions, but the amount of their concessions was greater. They agreed to political discussions on Crimea!” - said Arestovich.
This, according to him, will never happen again; the Russians “will push more.”
Russia will immediately sit down at the negotiating table if Ukraine offers, David Arakhamia, leader of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, said on the 1+1 TV channel.
According to him, the Ukrainian conflict could have ended in the spring of 2022 if Ukraine had agreed to neutrality then.
“This was the main thing for them (for Russia. - bbabo.net): they were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality, like Finland once did, and made a commitment that we would not join NATO. This is the main thing,” Arakhamia said.
Kyiv did not agree to this, because, according to Arakhamia, it would have to change the Constitution. In addition, the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came and said that he did not want to sign anything with the Russians and “let’s just fight.”
bbabo.Net