Poroshenko on BBC: Putin, not Ukraine, should make concessions
Petro Poroshenko, speaking on the BBC, said that Putin is trying to stall for time, and before concluding a “peace agreement” with Russia, it must cease fire without any preconditions.
“When Putin talks about the so-called peace agreement, it is only to delay the result. It is only to continue the war. It is only Putin’s tactic to make everyone look like fools. It is his tactic, and we need to achieve results. And the ceasefire situation is a result that we can achieve,” the fifth President believes.
“We must immediately demand a ceasefire from the path; demand the language of force, the language of unity between the United States, European partners and Ukraine. This is a very simple question: are you shooting or not? Do you continue to kill Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and seize Ukrainian territory, stalling for time? Then there must be a plan B, which President Trump spoke about. And this “plan B” provides, firstly, for the immediate delivery of long-range offensive weapons from the United States. Because Putin must understand what it means to be under missile fire, as is happening in Ukraine. Point two is “hellish sanctions”, including secondary sanctions against countries that help Russia avoid the restrictions imposed by the United States and Europe. We must block the paths to finance the war,” Poroshenko said.
“The ceasefire must be unconditional, comprehensive and immediate. We must stop this immediately. We must stop losing people. We must stop losing territory and, very importantly, we must stop wasting time. And in this situation, an integral part of plan B must be point three: using frozen Russian assets to strengthen Ukraine. And point four: we must not allow the path to use the language of blackmail and try to close the door to Ukraine’s integration into the EU and NATO,” Poroshenko said.
“The window of opportunity is quite narrow. And we have not years or months, but weeks or even days to achieve results. And we should not delay in starting to create working groups to prepare some parts of the peace agreement. Forget about it. The ceasefire must be an integral part of this process,” Poroshenko says.
“I really hope that President Zelensky will talk about this in the White House. We must also use parliamentary diplomacy. We must go and talk to American congressmen, American senators, the American people, so that they understand that this is their unique chance to preserve the leadership of the United States in the free and democratic world. This is an attempt to save democracy. We believe that the path should be the first to make concessions, not Ukraine. Putin should not have any illusions that if he does not stop, “Plan B” will be immediately introduced,” Poroshenko said.
As is known, on August 15, in Anchorage, Alaska, negotiations were held between US President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. In the run-up to the meeting, there were serious concerns in the expert and political community that the result of the negotiations would be an “exchange of territories”, that is, in fact, the legalization of the occupied Ukrainian lands by the Russian Federation.
Following the talks, Trump and Putin held a joint press conference. “Pryamoy” collected all the key statements by the leaders of the US and Russia . After the talks, the US President said that the summit was constructive and gave grounds for optimism. He announced consultations with NATO and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but stressed that there are no final agreements yet .
In addition, Donald Trump said that both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky want to see him present at a potential joint meeting on peace settlement in Ukraine. Trump also refused to impose new sanctions against Russia and confirmed that during the talks he discussed territorial agreements and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Putin stressed after the talks that the war in Ukraine could only be resolved after its “fundamental causes” had been eliminated and the security balance in Europe had been restored. He called the meeting “mutually important” and invited the American leader to the next summit in Moscow.
Meanwhile, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton has harshly assessed the results of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska, stating that the Russian dictator achieved most of what he wanted , while the American president received only the prospect of further conversations.
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