The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, admitted this Wednesday that the conflict in Ukraine is a “tragedy” and proposed “thinking” about finding a solution. But he regretted that international leaders were moved by this case and did not do so in 2014, during the beginning of the war in Donbass.
During the virtual summit of the G20 leaders, the head of the Kremlin did not offer, however, any concrete proposal and even less did he show signs that Russia is willing to back down on its approaches. Furthermore, he took advantage of his intervention to compare the war in central Europe with the one between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and to underline the different yardstick of Western countries.
The fighting is a tragedy and we must think about stopping it, said the Russian leader during his speech by videoconference before a forum organized by the Government of India, which this year holds the presidency of the G20.
“Military actions are always a tragedy for individuals and families, and for the country as a whole. Of course, we must think about how to stop this tragedy. By the way, Russia has never given up on peace negotiations with Ukraine,” Putin noted in his intervention, broadcast on Russian public television.
Furthermore, he reiterated that it was Kyiv that withdrew from the dialogue and recalled the decree of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, which “prohibits carrying out such negotiations with Russia.” The document, adopted in October 2022, rejects negotiations with Russia while the country is led by Vladimir Putin.
Putin also drew attention to the fact that some of the speakers at the summit had spoken of the shock caused by what they called Russia’s “continued aggression” in Ukraine. And he wondered if the events of 2014 in Ukraine, after which the conflict in the Donbass began, or the “extermination” of civilians in the Gaza Strip, have not moved them.
“I understand that this war, the loss of life, cannot but move. And the bloody coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, followed by the war of the Kyiv regime against its people in the Donbass? Doesn’t that move? And the extermination of civilians in Palestine, in the Gaza Strip, is not impressive? And the fact that doctors have to operate on children (…) act with a scalpel on the body of a child without anesthesia, that is not shocking “Isn’t it moving that the Secretary General of the United Nations has said that Gaza has become a huge children’s cemetery?” the Kremlin chief asked rhetorically.
Putin did not attend the last three G20 summits, held in Italy, Indonesia and India, with the excuse of the coronavirus. In the last one, in September of this year, he was represented by his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Zelensky has repeatedly said that Ukraine wants a cessation of hostilities, but the basis of the peace process must be the “peace formula” he presented a year ago. Among his points is the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities.
Moscow, on the other hand, defends that it is moving away from what it calls territorial “new realities”, namely the annexation it proclaimed in September 2022 of the Ukrainian provinces of Jershon, Zaporiyia, Donetsk and Luhansk.
To start talking, Russia has also demanded that Kyiv stop receiving Western weapons and that Ukraine’s future status be neutrality, that is, that it does not join NATO or be an ally of the Western military organization.
Among the Ukrainian conditions was also the return to Ukraine’s 1991 borders. That would mean that Russia would have to return the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in March 2014, something unacceptable for Moscow. Among other reasons there is a strategic one: in the main city of that territory, Sevastopol, is the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Zelensky has also pointed out that Kyiv will not go to peace with Moscow “at any price”, it will not give up territory. The Ukrainian president has also ruled out freezing the conflict.