Washington will back any negotiations to peacefully resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but it won’t persuade Kiev to surrender to Moscow, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday.
“We have told the Ukrainian government in no uncertain terms that we stand ready to support any diplomacy it wishes to pursue. But, as we’ve always said, we will not push them into concessions,” Price stated during a press briefing.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey on Thursday, in what were the most high-profile talks between the two sides since February 24, when the Russian offensive started.
Delegations from Moscow and Kiev have also held three rounds of talks in Belarus, but have so far failed to achieve any significant results.
Russia says it intervened in Ukraine in order to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country, and to hold accountable those responsible for what Moscow has called the “genocide” of civilians in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The Kremlin’s other demands include a neutral status for Ukraine, meaning it won’t be able to join NATO, and the recognition by Kiev that Crimea is part of Russia and the aforementioned republics are independent states.
Price said fulfilling those terms would represent “the surrender of Ukraine” and that was “not something that can be achieved or solved or addressed through diplomacy.”
He expressed the hope that “the pressure it’s encountering on the battlefield [and] the economic dire straits that it’s in back at home” would push Moscow to negotiate with Ukraine “in a way that actually involves good faith.”
“We haven’t seen that yet, but we will continue to mount pressure on the Kremlin, on President Putin, until we do,” he vowed.
Russian negotiators in Minsk have blamed the Ukrainian delegation for putting forward “absurd and unrealistic” demands in an attempt to derail Moscow’s initiative to open humanitarian corridors so civilians can leave besieged cities in Ukraine. They claim Kiev rejected most of the routes proposed by Moscow and suggested its own, while insisting it was up to Russia to dispose of the mines left by Ukrainian forces and rebuild a bridge destroyed by their retreating troops.
Following the talks with Kuleba, Lavrov said Kiev was merely trying to create the impression it was committed to diplomatic efforts. He criticized his Ukrainian counterpart for announcing to the media that a ceasefire had not been achieved despite the issue having not even been on the agenda.
Lavrov did not rule out direct negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but said any such sit-down would require preparation. It should not be “a meeting for the sake of meeting,” he said.