War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin admits that “in the end” an agreement will have to be found

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday it would be necessary to “reach an agreement” to end the conflict in Ukraine, although he expressed doubts the confidence that Moscow can deposit in its interlocutors.

“How can we agree? And can we agree with someone? And with what guarantees? That is of course the whole issue (…) But eventually an agreement will have to be reached. I have already said on several occasions that we are ready for these agreements, that we are open, but this forces us to reflect on who we are dealing with,” the Russian president said on the sidelines of a regional summit in Kyrgyzstan.

Putin has hinted that he has doubts about the West’s position following the failure of the Minsk peace accords for Donbass eight years ago.

The Minsk Accords are a series of somewhat ambiguous ceasefire agreements from 2014 and 2015, also known as the Minsk Protocol, which were created after pro-Russian separatists attacked and seized territory in eastern Ukraine, the Donbass.

The Minsk Protocol was signed to stop a conflict that was never fully concluded. A ceasefire was agreed but never suspended, and the region continued to be at war until the Russian invasion in February.

“disappointing”

In a press conference after attending a Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit in Bishkek, Putin said he was “disappointed” by a recent interview with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Der Spiegel magazine, who says the policy believed that the signing of the Minsk agreements it would buy Ukraine time to better defend itself against a Russian attack.

“Honestly, it was completely unexpected for me, It’s disappointingPutin said about it.

“Frankly, I did not expect to hear this from the ex-chancellor, because I always proceeded from the fact that the leadership of Germany behaves sincerely with us“, He added.

“Yes, of course, (she) was on the side of Ukraine, she supported it, but still it seemed to me that the German leadership has always sincerely sought agreement on the principles on which we agreed, which were achieved, including at the within the framework of the Minsk Process,” he said.

The president added that Merkel’s statements “just show that we have done everything right from the point of view of launching a special military operation”, referring to the war campaign that Russia launched on February 24 in Ukraine.

Said the now ex-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko he said he “would not respect” the Minsk accords.

“I was hoping the other participants in this process would be honest with us. It turns out they tricked us too. The goal was alone to inflate Ukraine with weapons and prepare it for hostilities. Maybe all of this should have started earlier,” she said, referring to Russia’s military intervention.

The problem is trust

Putin pointed out that now the problem is that of trust, which “is almost zero” for this type of declaration, because the question arises “how to negotiate? About what? Is it possible to negotiate with someone? And where are the guarantees?

“At the same time, we will eventually have to negotiate,” he admitted.

“I have said many times that we are ready for those agreements, we are open, but this makes us wonder who we are dealing with,” he stressed.

I have said many times that we are ready for these agreements, we are open, but this makes us think. Think about who we’re dealing with,” he insisted.

He also reiterated that the participants in the liquidation process they will have to accept the “reality”.

“One way or another, everyone involved in this process will have to agree the realities that unfold on the ground”said Putin, who has said on several occasions that this means this Ukraine accepts annexation not only from Crimea on the part of Russia, but now also from Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Russia controls none of these four southern and eastern provinces of Ukraine as a whole and its annexation is considered illegal from the West and from Kiev, which has already said that it will fight until it liberates all the occupied territory.

Putin did not acknowledge the setbacks suffered by the Army in the last nine months of the military campaign on the ground -with the first retreat from the north of Kiev, after Kharkiv, and subsequently also from the north of Kherson-, but he assured that “at the there are no problems at the moment”.

“The special military operation is underway. The situation is stable. There are no doubts and there are no problems at the moment,” he said.

Clarín writing with information from EFE and archive

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