MAPUTO, May 31. Moscow and Kyiv were close to an agreement under which Ukraine would remain non-aligned state, said the speaker of the Federation Council of Russia Valentina Matvienko.
"By the way, we were simultaneously negotiating with Ukraine to sign a peace agreement and agreements. We withdrew troops from Kyiv, Kharkov, and an agreement was practically prepared that suited Ukraine and Russia. The main conditions there were that Ukraine would remain a non-bloc, neutral state, like Austria, for example, that it would not be a nuclear state", she said during a meeting with Mozambican President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi.
According to Matvienko, the treaty was not allowed to come true by those «who exercise external control» over Ukraine. She also emphasized that Russia is still ready for negotiations, but Moscow does not see the same desire on the part of Kiev. Russian-Ukrainian consultations began at the end of February: the delegations held two face-to-face meetings in Belarus, after which it was decided to continue them daily video communications. At the end of March, another round of negotiations took place in Istanbul, as a result of which Kyiv submitted written proposals for a future treaty.The West is preparing to betray KievIn response to this, Russia went towards Ukraine and significantly reduced hostilities in the Kiev and Chernihiv directions. In addition, Moscow offered to hold a meeting between Putin and Zelensky simultaneously with the initialing of the treaty by the foreign ministers. However, later Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine was refusing its own proposals and creating numerous provocations in order to slow down the negotiation process. The official representative of the department, Maria Zakharova, stated that Kyiv had interrupted negotiations and had not yet responded to Russian proposals for the text of the draft treaty dated April 15. On May 14, Vladimir Putin, in a conversation with Finnish President Sauli Niiniste, said that negotiations with Ukraine were actually suspended. Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine on February 24. Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the main tasks of the first stage have already been completed — Ukraine's combat potential has been significantly reduced. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.