Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky did a u-turn on Tuesday after calling Russia’s ultimatums unfulfillable. Zelensky on Tuesday said that he is ready to discuss peace with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in any format.
The Ukrainian president, according to news agency AFP, said that he was ready to discuss the status of Russian-occupied Crimea and Russian-backed republics in Donbas. “I am ready to raise these issues. I would discuss all issues with him in great detail,” Zelensky said.
He also said that it will not be possible to arrive at a point where all parties agree to the same thing but steps can be taken to at least stop the war. Zelensky gave an indication that he was ready to discuss the status of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk but pointed out that any historic decision will be subjected to a referendum.
Earlier on Monday, Zelensky said that Ukraine cannot fulfil Russian ultimatums. “Ukraine cannot fulfil Russian ultimatums. We should be destroyed first, then their ultimatum would be fulfilled. Moscow wants Ukraine to hand over Kharkiv, Mariupol and Kyiv, neither the people of those cities nor me, as president, can do this,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky later said that a referendum is the only way to resolve these issues. “When you talk about all these changes, and they might be historic, we will not go anywhere, we will come to a referendum,” Zelensky was quoted as saying by Russia’s state-backed RT.com.
Sonia Mycak, a Ukraine expert at the Australian National University, told news agency AFP that even if referendums are held, Ukrainians, proud of their identity, will not be open to relinquishing those regions. She said that they fear subjugation. “It’s not just the loss of territory it’s the fact that they would have to live as Russians, there would be heavy Russification, there would be autocratic control,” Mycak was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
Several world leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his Israeli counterpart Naftali Bennett and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan among others have urged that both leaders speak directly to resolve the crisis. The foreign ministers Dmytro Kuleba and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov have met but failed to reach a resolution.
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