“There is a very good opportunity for this horrible and bloody war to end.” The president of the United States, Donald Trumphe has once again expressed his optimism about the Diplomatic process leading your administration to find a Solution to conflict in Ukraine Three years after the start of the Russian invasion. “Yesterday we had very good and productive conversations with the president Vladimir Putin”He added in a message on his social network. His proposal for a high initial fire is now on the roof of the Kremlinthat he is in no hurry to accept it, but he also does not want to squander the honeymoon that the tycoon has given him. It is what emerges from the first Putin reactions, which on Thursday expressed its predisposition to accept the truce provided certain conditions are met.
It would be a first encouraging step, but the most difficult will come later. Russian and Ukrainian positions follow light years. The Kremlin maintains a long list of maximalist demands to terminate the contest. Wants to recognize the New “reality on the ground” imposed on gunneys for their troops and that are addressed “The roots of the conflict “ to achieve “a long -term peace.” Some ‘roots’ that in the eyes of Moscow are the supposed broken promises of the Take In order not to expand east and the supposed discrimination in the prebélica ukraine of the ethnic Russians, the Russian language, their culture and the Russian speakers. A count that omits a fundamental reason: Putin, such as Russian nationalism, considers that Russians and Ukrainians are “The same town”, only separated by the accidents in history, and Ukraine, “An artificial invention.” But what are the demands that Putin have wielded To end the war?
In a very long speech in June 2024, the Russian autocrat made it very clear that to shut up the Ukraine weapons should withdraw from the four occupied regions by troops from the beginning of this last contest. Donetsk y Luhanskin the east, and Zaporiyia and Jersón in the south. Not only of the areas that currently control their troops, but “of the entire territory” of the four regions. At the same time, it requires Ukraine to recognize its annexation, unilaterally formalized in October 2022 after referendums held at gunpoint. These demands also extend to the peninsula of Crimeawhich ran the same fate in 2014. The sum of these territories represents almost the 20% of the land surface of Ukraine and also contains a substantial portion of its mineral resources.
“Crimea, Sebastopol, Jersón, Zaporiyia, Donetsk, Luhansk are Russia regions. It is written in our Constitution. It is a fact, ”the Kremlin spokesman repeated on Thursday, Dmitri Peskov. That same day, Trump explained that in the conversations with Ukraine it has been discussed what “portions of territory will stay and which will lose.” kyiv insists, however, that he will not recognize the Russian conquests in an eventual peace agreement.
After the failure of their plans to destroy the independence of Ukraine and seize its entire territory, the Kremlin wants at least to stay under its Sphere of influence. In that sense, Putin demands that he formally renounce NATO to NATOa position that apparently supports the Trump administration. But also that “adopt a Neutral Non -Aligned Country Statuswithout nuclear weapons, demilitarized y Desnazified”He said in that same 2024 speech. Russia would also not accept foreign bases in Ukraine or carry out military exercises in their territory, he added then.
Putin has been presenting without any basis for the government of Volodímir Zelenski As an alleged Nazis nest, from which it follows that it will also demand a new leadership in kyiv. Without using those terms, Trump has bought the Russian narrative and two weeks ago called “Dictator without elections” A green.
One of the great challenges if the fire will reach a stop, it happens to know who will be in charge of preserving it. Countries like France y United Kingdom He has offered to send “peace troops” to Ukraine, a possibility that Kremlin has again rejected sharply this week. “Why should we allow a peace force composed of countries that have declared us their enemy?” The Foreign Minister said this week, Sergei Lavrov. Putin also wants the eventual border between the two countries to be separated by “A security zone.”
Among the reasons that Putin has used to justify his military aggression in Ukraine, is the supposed oppression of the Russian populationa language almost as spoken as the Ukrainian before the invasion. In 2019, the Ukrainian Parliament approved a law that made Ukrainian the only official state languagemandatory in many areas of public life, which aroused the controversy inside and outside the country, being considered by some as too restrictive and discriminatory towards minority languages. But from there to the “genocide” that, according to Putin, has been subjected by the Russian population half a good stretch. As part of a peace agreement, Putin has reiterated that “the Rights, liberties and interests of Russian -speaking Ukrainians They must be fully protected. ”
At the same time, the Kremlin wants to see a lifting of the Western sanctions that have weakened their economy. A measure that the White House has begun to evaluate. Is particularly interested in those that affect the transnational payment system and the gas and oil exports, Your main source of income. In conversations with the US held in Istanbul at the end of February, the Russian delegation advocated resume direct flights between Russia and the US, suspended for years by sanctions.
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