Advisor to the elected President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, Ivan Aparshin, said in an interview with the Ukrainian television channel ZIK, that he does not recommend Zelensky to conduct direct negotiations with Vladimir Putin.
“One-on-one is unpromising ... What does direct negotiations mean? ... I would not advise the president of Ukraine to meet in this format today,” the representative of the new head of state stressed.
Recall, on April 23, the Ukrainian Central Election Commission announced that, according to the results of processing 100% of the ballots, Vladimir Zelensky scored 73.22% of the votes in the second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine on April 21. His opponent, Petro Poroshenko, was supported by 24.45% of Ukrainians.
Winner Tips
According to Aparshin, who joined the Zelensky team after the first round of voting, dialogue with Russia is possible only with the mediation of Western countries, primarily the United States and Great Britain. One-on-one, he considers a “losing option.” In addition, Aparshin categorically opposes any negotiations with representatives of the self-proclaimed DNR and LC.
However, earlier Zelensky’s other adviser - former finance minister Alexander Danilyuk - claimed that the comedian was ready to meet with both Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.
The special representative of the US State Department for Ukraine, Kurt Walker, on the eve also "endorsed" the idea of the talks between Putin and Zelensky.
- Kurt Walker
- Reuters
- © Valentyn Ogirenko
“We need to communicate directly, and I believe that the desire (Zelensky - RT ) to talk with Putin is not a bad sign, but a good one,” Volker told NewsHour on PBS. According to him, the election of a new president is “a great opportunity to start a dialogue from scratch.”
In turn, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was one of the first to congratulate Zelensky on his election, gave him advice on how to negotiate with the Russian leader.
“I don’t think it will be difficult for him,” said Pashinyan. - There is a condition: if you are direct, honest, without a dirty trick - it will not be difficult. You just need to communicate directly and honestly. ”
Earlier, the head of the political council of the Ukrainian party Opposition Platform For Life, Viktor Medvedchuk, proposed Zelensky to restore economic relations with Russia. And his associate, Yuriy Boyko, who took the 4th place in the first round of the presidential election, believes that the initiative should come from Ukraine in negotiations with the Russian leadership.
“Well, professionally you need to prepare for any negotiations. Of course, there should be a normal human contact, but also good professional training, ”Kommersant quotes Boyko.
However, as stated in a conversation with RT source from the entourage of Vladimir Zelensky, the showman is “not ready for dialogue with Vladimir Putin.” Therefore, the elected president of Ukraine will try to abstain from it until the elections to the Ukrainian parliament, scheduled for October this year.
“First, he is not yet privy to the details of past negotiations between Putin and Poroshenko. Secondly, he has no experience of such meetings. He does not even know how to behave properly on them. And a failure in negotiations with Vladimir Putin can derail the rating of Zelensky and his party “The Servant of the People” before the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, ”the source said.
"Main question"
On April 24, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian president, said that “there are still a lot of white spots in terms of understanding the approaches of the elected president of Ukraine to the fundamental issues on the agenda of bilateral Russian-Ukrainian relations.”
Vladimir Zelensky himself has repeatedly stated his readiness to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. In January 2019, answering the question of journalists how he imagines such a dialogue, the presidential candidate of Ukraine noted that the main thing in it is to achieve a cease-fire in the Donbas.
“It seems to me that you can agree. The first is to stop killing. It is important to save our people, ”Zelensky said then.
- Ukrainian troops in the Donbass
- Reuters
- © Gleb Garanich
On March 22, in an interview with Western media, the former Ukrainian comedian returned to this topic again, noting that the issue of negotiations with the Russian leader “is not at all funny. This is the main question.
On the eve of the first ballot (March 30), the future president of Ukraine was interviewed by the French philosopher and publicist Bernard-Henri Levy. According to him, speaking of Putin, he realized that a meeting with the Russian president "is causing him (Zelensky. - RT ) enthusiasm in advance." At the same time, the former comedian expressed confidence that at the meeting he would be able to “laugh” Putin.
However, having won in the first round, Zelensky expressed himself more harshly: “If I meet with Mr. Putin, I will tell him:“ Well, finally you have returned our territories. How much more are they willing to compensate for the money that they took away our territories and helped the people who participated in the escalation of the Crimea and the Donbass, on the whole of their terrible, disgusting way? ”, Said Zelensky during a briefing to journalists.
But a week later, on April 7, the winner’s rhetoric declined - he announced his readiness to negotiate with the Russian president, not mentioning the demands for compensation, but noting the need for an early ceasefire in the Donbas.
At the end of the second round, Zelensky promised journalists that in relations with Russia he would act “in the Norman format” and “continue the Minsk process”, but added that the primary task for him was to return to the homeland of Ukrainian sailors detained by Russia after the incident in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
At the same time, Zelensky believes that it is necessary to involve “Western countries” in the negotiation process in the Minsk format. He stated this during an interview with foreign journalists in March. “We need to expand the negotiating table - to involve the UK and the United States. Yes, you will not leave anywhere, and Russia, ”Zelensky said at the time and supported Kurt Volcker’s plan, which had been previously criticized by Moscow, for bringing peacekeepers into the republics of Donbass.
At the same time, like his predecessor, Zelensky linked the possibility of negotiations with Russia with the situation in the Donbas, placing our country responsible for the conflict in the east of Ukraine.
Commenting on the words of the new leader Nezalezhnaya, the press secretary of the head of the Russian state, Dmitry Peskov, stressed that “from the very beginning President Putin was and remains a serious supporter of this dialogue. In addition, President Putin has repeatedly said that in order to resolve the conflict in the Donbass, the main thing is not a dialogue with Moscow. Moscow is not a party to this conflict, it is an internal Ukrainian conflict. ”
According to the Russian side, Kiev should not ignore representatives of the republics of Donbass, because the conflict can be resolved only if Ukrainians speak with each other.
"Weak position"
According to experts, the statements coming from Zelensky himself and his team indicate that there is no stable position on many issues that are important for holding an effective dialogue with Moscow.
“If we compare the statements of Zelensky himself or his staff, one can find an enormous amount of contradictions,” Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of Russia, said in a conversation with RT.
At the same time, according to the RT source in the team of the winner of the presidential election in Ukraine, “advisers to the future president do not bear any responsibility for their words and actions.”
- Zelensky celebrates his election victory with members of his team
- Reuters
- © Viacheslav Ratynskyi
In turn, Denis Denisov, director of the Institute for Peacemaking Initiatives and Conflictology, notes that many past statements by Zelensky and his team made in the context of the election campaign should be viewed as “destructive, designed to hinder relations between Ukraine and Russia”. And the continuation of this rhetoric "narrows the planning horizon and freedom of action for the elected president."
“If the trend continues, it can be argued that a certain status quo will remain in the relations between the two states, and one can hardly expect a meeting at the level of top officials. But there remain certain opportunities for improving bilateral relations, ”Denisov said in an interview with RT.
At the same time, the desire of the Zelensky team and of his own to connect Western countries with negotiations with Russia “testifies to the absence of Ukraine’s subjectivity,” Bogdan Bezpalko believes.
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“It is in the interests of Ukraine as a state, even as an unfriendly state towards Russia, to conduct direct negotiations with it and directly be a subject of the political process,” the expert emphasizes. “And when the whole team of the President of Ukraine declares the need to connect the United States and the United Kingdom, it means that they want to shift a significant share of responsibility to these countries.” They feel more like vassals than a full-fledged state, which is able to independently decide how to build relations with its closest neighbors. ”
In turn, the source of the RT in the administration of Petro Poroshenko noted that Zelensky’s headquarters, trying to involve Washington and London in the Donbas talks, showed that he was not well versed in this matter.
“This is a weak position. The US has repeatedly invited to the negotiation process, but they refused. Zelensky still did not understand what he was subscribed to, ”said the source RT.