General
Ukraine Accuses Russia of Stalling Peace Negotiations
Both Kyiv and Moscow have been maneuvering to set the terms and tempo of any talks to end the fighting.
Ukraine’s foreign minister on Friday accused Russia of stalling peace negotiations, saying that Moscow had yet to share a promised memorandum outlining its peace terms. He said Kyiv wanted to see that document before sending a delegation to a new round of talks Moscow has proposed for Monday in Istanbul.
The minister, Andrii Sybiha, said at a news conference in Kyiv that for any meeting to be “substantive and meaningful,” Ukraine needed “to receive a document in advance so that the delegation that will attend has the authority to discuss the relevant positions.”
Mr. Sybiha’s remarks came as both Ukraine and Russia have been maneuvering to set the terms and tempo of peace negotiations, while simultaneously trying to win over the White House, which has threatened to pull out of the talks altogether.
Kyiv’s goal remains to secure a cease-fire first, before moving on to negotiations for a broader peace deal. Russia has shown little interest for a cease-fire. Instead it repeatedly has said that it wants talks to focus on solving the “root causes” of the war — Kremlin parlance for wide-ranging demands like a commitment not to expand NATO eastward, an objective that Kyiv and its allies see as a way to subjugate Ukraine.
Both sides agreed to share their peace terms during a previous round of talks in Istanbul this month that yielded a large prisoner exchange but little else.
Kyiv said it had submitted its own peace terms to both Russia and the United States before next week’s potential talks. But Russia has said it will share its memorandum only during the new round of negotiations, prompting Ukraine to accuse it of slow-walking the peace process.
