ALMA-ATA, June 21 Statements about the need to invite Russia to a summit on resolving the Ukrainian crisis causes a misunderstanding why the conference participants would gather in Switzerland without it, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
«The statement that Russia must be invited — these statements were made by many participants in the Swiss gathering. But if you are convinced of this, why are you going without Russia?» — Lavrov addressed the Westerners.
He added that if Russia is called when the Western Ukrainian core has formulated its position and presented it to Moscow, then this will become another ultimatum.
“You can’t talk to us like that if they don’t understand this. I feel sorry for their diplomatic abilities, which they have lost, in fact, replacing diplomacy with sanctions, ultimatums, blackmail,” the minister explained.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 14, the day before the start of the conference in Switzerland, announced his readiness for peaceful negotiations to resolve the Ukrainian crisis and named the conditions necessary for this: neutral, non-aligned, nuclear-free status of Ukraine, its demilitarization and denazification , withdrawal of troops from the territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions within their administrative borders in 1991. Also, according to the Russian leader, the West, as part of a peace settlement, must remove all sanctions from Russia. At the same time, the Russian leader said that we are not talking about freezing the conflict, but about its complete cessation. Putin added that the situation on the line of military contact will continue to change not in Kyiv’s favor, and then Russia’s conditions may already be different.