Russia will ask Ukraine to drastically cut military ties with the NATO alliance and become a neutral state with a limited army. Exclusive sources for the prestigious Bloomberg report that these are the claims of Vladimir Putin who will consider them in any conversation with the incoming US president, Donald Trump.
Increasingly convinced that he has the advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to achieve his goal of Kiev never joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and having limits placed on its military capacity, Kremlin sources told Bloomberg.
The Kremlin's position is that while individual NATO members can continue to send weapons to Ukraine under bilateral security agreements, any such weapons should not be used against Russia or to retake territory, one of the sources quoted by Bloomberg said.
The hard-line demands are almost certain to be unpopular with Ukrainian leaders as the war nears its three-year mark, writes A2 CNN. The Russian leader's stance also defies Trump's stated desire to end the conflict as quickly as possible and could be designed to give Moscow leeway to negotiate. Meanwhile, Russian gains in eastern Ukraine have been slow and have come at a heavy cost.
Ukrainian officials familiar with the talks said the only negotiations between Kiev and Moscow are currently limited to a prisoner swap and the return of expelled children. The Russian conditions also include maintaining at least de facto control of the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine Russia holds, including the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014, although Moscow is open to some territorial swaps, some of the sources told Bloomberg. The Kremlin has not commented on the reports. (A2 Televizion)
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