A senior Russian official threw cold water on the revived peace talks with Ukraine, flatly rejecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demand that Russia withdraw all troops from Ukraine’s borders.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, called Zelensky’s demand “Thursday to the point of idiocy and in principle unfeasible.” Medvedev’s remarks, which were made in a lengthy Telegram publication, come a day after Zelensky reiterated that he would not cede any territory to Russia to end the three-month conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that he would not accept a peace deal unless Ukraine agreed to “solve the problems of Crimea and Donbas,” creating what has so far been an insurmountable point of conflict with Zelensky.
Earlier in the conflict, Zelensky refused to recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean region to the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. Following the annexation, Russia turned its attention to the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have declared independent republics. Russia has focused its efforts on the region, which has a large Russian population, after failing to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, has referred to the peace demands of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky as “unviable.” Above, Medvedev speaks during a meeting with members of the Security Council in Moscow on February 21, 2022. ALEXEY NIKOLSKY / Getty Images
Zelensky said earlier this month that the war would end when Ukraine regained control of all its territories currently under Russian control.
“In anticipation of his inevitable defeat, Ukrainian President Zelensky found a convenient way out of the impasse,” Medvedev said in his message. “No country, no problem. His actions and statements show that he is now willing to put almost everything on the altar of his political ambitions.”
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012 as well as its prime minister from 2021 to 2020, criticized Zelensky for ignoring the “will” of the people of the two disputed regions.
Russia annexed Crimea after a highly criticized referendum that has not been recognized internationally. The separatist regions in eastern Ukraine have only been recognized by Russia and a handful of other countries. According to the BBC, Russia has held a similar referendum in eastern Ukraine.
Medvedev also drew attention to Tuesday’s call by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for Ukraine to end the war by ceding territory to Russia.
“By the way, for many years the venerable old man did not show sympathy for Russia, but he always thought rationally,” Medvedev wrote.
However, Zelensky on Wednesday reiterated his demand that Ukraine remain intact in a speech that criticized Kissinger’s suggestion. The Ukrainian leader suggested that Kissinger’s statements would be more to the liking of Nazi Germany.
“It looks like Mr. Kissinger’s calendar is not in 2022, but in 1938, and he thought he was talking to an audience not in Davos, but in Munich at the time,” Zelensky said.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian government for comment.