Milan, June 4 (LaPresse) – What Russia presented to Ukraine in the second round of talks held on June 2 in Istanbul is not a memorandum, but an ultimatum. This is what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his first public comments on the text in which Moscow outlined its conditions for a truce and peace.
“It is an ultimatum, and neither the Ukrainian side will accept it, nor will anyone take it seriously, because it is an ultimatum. This memorandum is a misunderstanding,” Zelensky said.
In the text, Moscow’s position appears unchanged, with conditions that Ukraine and the West have already rejected in the past. As a condition for a ceasefire, Russia demands that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four regions annexed by Russia in September 2022 but never fully occupied: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
Alternatively, it urges Ukraine to halt its mobilization efforts and freeze the delivery of Western weapons—conditions previously suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The document also states that, as prerequisites for ending hostilities, Ukraine must stop any redeployment of forces and prohibit any foreign military presence on its territory. Furthermore, Ukraine must end martial law and call new elections; only after such a vote could the two countries sign a peace treaty, which, according to Moscow, should include Ukraine declaring its neutral status, dropping its bid to join NATO, setting limits on the size of its armed forces, and recognizing Russian as an official language equal to Ukrainian.