“Need Status Quo Ante 2013”
Melnyk rejects Putin’s demands
02/28/2022, 10:05 p.m
President Putin requires the demilitarization of Ukraine and recognition of the annexed Crimea to end the invasion. For the Ambassador of Ukraine, Andriy Melnyk, these demands are “nonsense”. The territorial integrity of his country is “non-negotiable”.
The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has rejected Russian demands for a possible understanding between the two warring countries. “What we heard is unacceptable,” said Melnyk on TV station Welt. “What is non-negotiable is our territorial integrity. That is, including with Crimea and also with Donbass.” There will be no compromises. “We need a status quo ante 2013.”
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Before the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, Moscow recognized separatist areas in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass as independent states last week.
After a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron, the Kremlin said of a possible agreement with Ukraine: “Putin stressed that such an agreement is only possible if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.” This includes, for example, recognizing the sovereignty of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and demilitarizing Ukraine. Talks between Russia and Ukraine on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border ended without any tangible result.
Among other things, Melnyk emphasized that the demand for demilitarization was “nonsense”: “We are a sovereign state.” The ambassador said he didn’t know what Putin imagined, “how he could even get out of this mess face-saving.”