The Ukrainian Foreign Minister In China & The New Rhetoric Of The Ukrainian Leadership.New sounds have been heard from Kiev lately. Suddenly there is talk of direct negotiations with Russia and now Moscow has signaled that the new Kiev embassies "concur" with the Russian position.
During negotiations in Istanbul
In April 2022, Kiev and Moscow came very close to a peace solution , but then Kiev -
apparently under pressure from the West - broke off the negotiations and announced that the decision would have to be made on the battlefield. On September 30, 2022, the (
then still legitimate ) Ukrainian President Zelensky even issued a decree banning negotiations with “Putin’s Russia” and making them punishable.
That was the official line of Kiev and the West for over two years. But recently new sounds have been heard from Kiev and
suddenly Zelensky is talking about inviting Russia to the next “peace summit”. How this is compatible with his decree, in which he criminalized direct talks with “Putin’s Russia,” remains a secret.
So far, the new statements from Kiev have been quite cloudy and the reaction from Moscow has been correspondingly cautious because Moscow did not know what exactly and under what preconditions Ukraine actually wanted to discuss at the next “peace summit”.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister in China.The publicly known press releases have not changed this so far, but apparently there is movement behind the scenes, as the trip by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba to China shows. After the meeting,
stated : the Chinese Foreign Minister
“Ukraine wants to participate in dialogue and negotiations with Russia and is preparing for this.”
According to the Ukrainian foreign minister, “the talks should be rational and substantive in order to achieve a just and lasting peace,” the Chinese foreign minister continued.
Kuleba said Ukraine highly appreciates China's active and constructive role in promoting peace and maintaining international order, which was a very unexpected statement, as Kiev has so far rejected all Chinese ideas on the Ukraine conflict. And he said even more unexpected things, because he also said that Kiev attaches great importance to Beijing's opinion that the Ukrainian side has studied the initiative of China and Brazil for a political settlement of the conflict, which Kiev has always flatly rejected.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry
said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba had informed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Kiev was ready for talks with Moscow at an appropriate time:
“Dmitri Kuleba expressed Ukraine's consistent position, which includes readiness to conduct the negotiation process with the Russian side at an appropriate stage when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith.”
But the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry added that, according to the Ukrainian foreign minister, “there is currently no such willingness on the Russian side.” The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry further stated that finding ways to resolve the conflict was the main theme of talks with Wang Yi, with Kuleba noting that it was necessary to end the Ukrainian conflict, "restore peace and restore the state." accelerate".
These official reports do not differ from what has been heard recently from Kiev, but which did not contain any concrete statements.
Is Kiev ready to give up NATO membership?One of Russia's most important demands has always been that Ukraine remains a neutral state that does not join any military alliance - and certainly not NATO. Ukraine's announced NATO accession was the main reason for the escalation in February 2022. Therefore, Kuleba said something very surprising in China.
He
declared in his opening speech before talks with his Chinese counterpart in Guangzhou that Ukraine intended to join the EU, but, as is usual in such cases, did not mention Kiev's plans for NATO membership:
“Ukraine recently started negotiations to join the EU. This decision is irreversible for both Ukraine and the EU. “I propose to talk today about our bilateral relations also from the perspective of Ukraine’s future membership in the EU and China’s relations with the EU.”
Incidentally, in the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, Russia even expressly agreed to support Ukraine's accession to the EU. Russia appears to have resigned itself to Ukraine's EU accession after the Maidan governments created a fait accompli and severed old trade and economic ties between Ukraine and Russia. But Ukraine joining NATO and stationing foreign soldiers in Ukraine remain unacceptable for Russia.
There were probably also some discussions behind the scenes, perhaps there is even a Russian negotiator on site whom the Chinese can inform directly and ask questions if necessary, because shortly after the meeting between Kuleba and the Chinese Foreign Minister,
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the meeting in China and the first public statements as follows:
“This message is consistent with our position.”
These are completely new sounds from Moscow, which can only mean that Kuleba showed even more willingness to negotiate behind the scenes than he announced in his official statements. Apparently people in Moscow were informed quickly, because the quoted public statements from the meeting in China in no way justify the comment that this message corresponds to the Russian position.
Is Kyiv finally ready for serious negotiations?The fact that Kuleba flew to China shows that Kiev could be ready for serious negotiations. In Kiev's eyes, China is considered an ally of Moscow and Kiev has always rejected the Chinese peace proposal outright.
after the talks in China also shows that Kiev's position may have changed
A comment that Kuleba published :
“We agreed that all forces should work together to find common ground towards the restoration of real peace.”
In his opinion, Kiev needs lasting peace, not an illusion. Kuleba described the discussions with Wang Yi as detailed and substantive. He thanked the Chinese Foreign Minister for his hospitality and invited him to visit Ukraine.
This time there was no trace of the previous Ukrainian criticism of the Chinese position on the Ukraine conflict and the Chinese peace plan.
This does not mean that a breakthrough has been achieved. But at least things seem to be moving in the right direction.
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