Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded with harsh words to her American colleague Matthew Miller’s claim that Russia was refusing to participate in peace talks. Ukraine’s “spring offensive” is faltering. (Photo: Destroyed Ukrainian tanks near Robotino)
The spokesman for the US State Department responded to a press question on August 7 about the Ukraine conference in Saudi Arabia Matthew Miller: »There are currently no peace negotiations with Russia because Russia has refused to participate in meaningful peace negotiations.«
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sharply criticized Miller’s statement: “What a bunch of liars! They know perfectly well that in April 2022 they (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) ordered Zelenskyy to break off the negotiations; that they arranged for the Kyiv government to ban peace talks with Russia in September 2022; and that for a year they have been saying, over and over again, that now is not the time for peace talks. Despite this, they still blame Russia,” wrote Zakharova on Telegram:
“Of course there’s a chance the State Department spokesman doesn’t know what his boss, the Secretary of State, is saying. You can’t rule it out. But when Matthew Miller reads his boss Antony Blinken’s April 2023 interview, he’ll understand that he’s either playing games or being duped.”
“For some, the idea of a ceasefire may be tempting – and I understand that,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the newspapers of the SPD-affiliated Funke media group on April 7, 2023. “But if that amounts to effectively giving the go-ahead for Russia’s conquest of significant Ukrainian territory, that wouldn’t be a just and lasting peace,” Blinken said. n-tv headlined »Blinking warns of ceasefire talks«.
In an interview on 2/4/2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that there was “a good chance of reaching a ceasefire” before Western powers “blocked” his efforts.
On March 7, 2022, two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bennett traveled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin and try to negotiate a peace while Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held talks in Belarus, reports The European Conservative.
“Both sides were very interested in reaching a ceasefire,” said Bennett, who described both Putin and Zelensky as “very pragmatic” in March 2022. Bennett claimed that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stepped in, “calling for more radical action.”
“I think the West has made a decision to continue attacking Putin” and to take a “more aggressive approach,” Bennett said.
In April 2022, Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev and argued that “Putin is a war criminal” who “should be pressured, not negotiated with,” the report reported Ukrainska Pravda. “Even if Ukraine is willing to sign some guarantees with Putin, they (the West) are not.”
Johnson felt the West now felt that Putin wasn’t really as powerful as they had previously imagined and that there was a chance to pressure him,” according to the pro-Western Ukrainska Pravda on May 5, 2022.
“The Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had apparently negotiated a draft peace agreement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent on August 22, 2022 in Foreign Affairs. “Russia would go back to its position of February 23 when it controlled part of Donbass and Crimea. In exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from multiple countries.”
“There will be no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains Russian leader,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on September 28, 2022.
On October 4, 2022 Zelenskyj signed a draft of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, which declared talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin “impossible”. “He (Putin) doesn’t know what dignity and honesty are. That’s why we are ready to hold a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” Zelenskyy said.
It seems that the West has decided to continue the war in order to weaken Putin and make gains in Ukraine. The Ukrainian “counteroffensive” has not yet been able to gain any significant ground. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the start of the Ukrainian »counteroffensive« on June 4th. 43,000 Ukrainians killed.