MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Friday Russia would end the war in Ukraine only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow, demands Kyiv swiftly rejected as tantamount to surrender.
On the eve of a conference in Switzerland to which Russia has not been invited, Putin set out maximalist conditions at odds with the terms demanded by Ukraine, apparently reflecting Moscow’s growing confidence that its forces have the upper hand in the war.
He restated his demand for Ukraine’s demilitarisation, unchanged from the day he sent in his troops on Feb. 24, 2022, and said an end to Western sanctions must also be part of a peace deal.
He also repeated his call for Ukraine’s “denazification”, based on what Kyiv calls an slur against its leadership.
Ukraine said the conditions were “absurd”.
“He is offering for Ukraine to admit defeat. He is offering for Ukraine to legally give up its territories to Russia. He is offering for Ukraine to sign away its geopolitical sovereignty,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.
Oops
I know at the beginning they were saying just send equipment. I thought they were now asking for troops. My bad.
In that case, send everything we can legally send them.
No, it would be a good idea to send some trainers and stuff, just not frontline fighters. Even putting some peacekeepers on the Belarusian border might be okay, freeing up the little amount of Ukrainian troops that need to be stationed there