Zelensky: Moscow demands a global security agreement to end the war

To establish peace in Ukraine, Russia demands a separate agreement with NATO or the US on European and global security.

This was reported by Volodymyr Zelensky at a briefing following yesterday’s phone conversation between Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They say: ‘If you want security guarantees for Ukraine, then we want them for Russia.’ One should understand what meaning Russia puts into this. It’s not simply about Ukraine not striking them. For them this is a far broader and more specific issue,” Zelensky noted.

According to him, the future agreement is aimed at changing the entire security system in Europe. At the same time, Zelensky admitted that he does not know all the details of Russia’s demands.

He urged the West not to discuss guarantees for Russia until security guarantees for Ukraine and the conditions for ending the current war are clear.

In addition, he expressed concerns about a redistribution of spheres of influence in the world in the event of a meeting between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in November.

“I really don’t want this to be Yalta — 2, 3, 4, when a redistribution of influence takes place. I would even say, not of influence, but of thoughts — that things can be redistributed this way. Today we have a different world, a fragmented world that is very different from the world of the Second World War, both before and after,” Zelensky stated.

At the same briefing, the Ukrainian president described what options for territorial compromises the US proposed at various stages of the negotiations.

Moscow demands a neutral and non-nuclear status for Ukraine, Kyiv’s abandonment of a “nationalist course,” the transfer to it of certain parts of regions that are “enshrined in the Russian Constitution,” as well as a new architecture of European security, which from the Kremlin’s point of view should become part of a peace agreement. The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that this topic will be central at the upcoming trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi in November.