MOSCOW — (AP) The head of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukrainian officials says the parties have come <a href=”https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-covid-health-business-europe-c9a22012d500295c67fd75048a05587b”>closer to an agreement</a> on a neutral status for Ukraine.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian negotiators in several rounds of talks with Ukraine, including this week, said Friday that the sides have narrowed their differences on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO and adopting a neutral status.
“The issue of neutral status and no NATO membership for Ukraine is one of the key issues in talks, and that is the issue where the parties have made their positions maximally close,” Medinsky said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.
He added that the sides are now “half-way” on issues regarding the demilitarization of Ukraine. Medinsky noted that while Kyiv insists that Russia-backed separatist regions in Ukraine’s east must be brought back into the fold, Russia believes that people of the regions must be allowed to determine their fate themselves.
Medinsky noted that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is possible after the negotiators finalize a draft treaty to end the hostilities and it receives a preliminary approval by the countries’ governments.
Medinsky also bristled at a recent statement by Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyy, who called for disrupting railway links to supply Russian troops in Ukraine, saying it could undermine the talks.
Ukraine and Russia are engaged in intermittent negotiations to end a brutal war now in its third week. But despite signs of progress, Western officials have little optimism that the talks have reached a serious stage or even confronted the most difficult issues.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has raised hopes with recent statements that seem to accept that his country will not be a part of NATO, despite the alliance’s promise in 2008 to accept it one day and even though the Ukrainian constitution was amended three years ago to make membership in both NATO and the European Union national goals.
A form of neutrality for Ukraine without NATO membership would seem to satisfy a key Russian demand, though only one of them. And any form of neutrality must come with security guarantees against further Russian aggression, the Ukrainians say. But who would provide such guarantees, and, if some guarantors are NATO members, how that would be fundamentally different from actual membership in the alliance, are only some of the fundamental questions outstanding.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky said neutrality must include reliable guarantees that protect Ukraine from future threats. “We can and must defend our state, our life, our Ukrainian life,” he said. “We can and must negotiate a just but fair peace for Ukraine, real security guarantees that will work. Patience is needed.” …
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina used his opening statement at the Supreme Court confirmation hearing to air lingering grievances over the treatment of Brett M. Kavanaugh, in an apparent effort to justify Republicans’ tough questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and rebut suggestions that challenging the first Black woman nominated to the court amounted to racism.
Mr. Graham seized on Justice Kavanaugh’s explosive confirmation hearings in 2018 as an example of unfair treatment of a Supreme Court nominee, asserting that Judge Jackson was already being afforded more respect and could expect a more civil tone in four days of hearings this week.
“None of us are going to do that to you,” said Mr. Graham, referring to Justice Kavanaugh’s hearings. He noted that Republicans could not even get through an opening statement in those proceedings before being interrupted by liberal activists.
Expect to be disappointed…
MOSCOW — (AP) The head of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukrainian officials says the parties have come <a href=”https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-covid-health-business-europe-c9a22012d500295c67fd75048a05587b”>closer to an agreement</a> on a neutral status for Ukraine.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian negotiators in several rounds of talks with Ukraine, including this week, said Friday that the sides have narrowed their differences on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO and adopting a neutral status.
“The issue of neutral status and no NATO membership for Ukraine is one of the key issues in talks, and that is the issue where the parties have made their positions maximally close,” Medinsky said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.
He added that the sides are now “half-way” on issues regarding the demilitarization of Ukraine. Medinsky noted that while Kyiv insists that Russia-backed separatist regions in Ukraine’s east must be brought back into the fold, Russia believes that people of the regions must be allowed to determine their fate themselves.
Medinsky noted that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is possible after the negotiators finalize a draft treaty to end the hostilities and it receives a preliminary approval by the countries’ governments.
Medinsky also bristled at a recent statement by Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyy, who called for disrupting railway links to supply Russian troops in Ukraine, saying it could undermine the talks.
closer to an agreement
As diplomacy drags on, peace seems far off in Ukraine
GOP senators do ‘Airing of Grievances’ in the confirmation hearing for Justice Ketanji Brown.
Republicans are re-litigating Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle
NY Times – March 21