Who are the 11 representatives negotiating on behalf of Putin and Zelensky for the ceasefire

A Russian diplomatic team guarantees that the ceasefire will be on the table during negotiations that are scheduled for this Thursday (3) in Belarus between Russian and Ukrainian representatives. According to the AFP agency, the Russian army will create a security corridor for Ukrainian diplomats. Vladimir Putin sent five men and Volodymyr Zelensky sent six. The 11 will be sitting at the table to try to reach an agreement. Among those chosen are a politician who has been involved in a sex scandal, an adviser who believes that Russians have an extra chromosome, a famous lawyer, a polyglot and a politician who likes to appear wearing a cap.

russians

Vladimir Rostislavovich

He is an adviser to Putin, is 51 years old and is a Russian politician, professor and publicist. He is a member of the General Council of the United Russia party. Son of a doctor and a military man, his father was a colonel in the army, having participated in the invasion of former Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in the war in Afghanistan. Medinsky was Minister of Culture from 2012 to 2020 but his appointment has sparked controversy. In a 2012 interview with the RussKaya Zhizn newspaper, he said that the Russian people have an extra chromosome from having survived so many catastrophes. Defender of Lenin’s removal from the mausoleum (the place in Red Square in Moscow where the body of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is exposed), found himself involved in a controversy over two of his three theses on Political Science: he was the target of accusations of plagiarism.

Alexander Fomin

He has been the Russian Defense Minister since 2017 and is 62 years old. In January, he was one of the members of the delegation sent by Putin to the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Council meeting in Brussels. The meeting was already aimed at reducing tension between Moscow and the West, after Russia sent a military contingent to a region close to the border with Ukraine. Fomin was the author of several phrases that in the times before the invasion gave signs of the strategy in Moscow. “NATO has moved to the practice of direct provocation, which involves a high risk of escalation into a military conflict,” he warned. The colonel-general is multilingual, fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, English and Creole. He was born in Leninogorsk, Kazakhstan. He graduated in 1984 from the Military University of the Russian Ministry of Defense. He served in the military between 1977 and 1993.

Leonid Slutsky

He is 54 years old and heads the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Parliament (Duma). He was involved in a sexual harassment controversy in 2018, when he was the target of accusations by four journalists. Two of them even testified before the parliament’s ethics committee about the alleged sexual harassment, but Slutsky was acquitted. Later, Putin’s ally made a Facebook post in which he said: “I take this opportunity to ask forgiveness from all women to whom I have caused bad experiences, voluntarily or involuntarily. Believe me, I had no bad intentions.” He is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

Andrey Rudenko

He is Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, he is 60 years old and has been involved in the foreign business circuits since 1985, having held various positions. In February, when Germany announced it was suspending the Nord Stream 2 pipeline certification process, after Russia’s advances in Ukraine, Rudenko reacted: “Moscow doesn’t believe in tears.” He was born in the capital of Russia and holds a degree in International Relations from Moscow University. Among the portfolios he has to manage are relations with two regions that declared themselves independent and that Moscow has recognized: Abkhazia, a republic in northern Georgia, and Tskhinvali, the capital of the Georgian region of South Ossetia.

Boris Gryzlov

Russian ambassador to Belarus, he is 71 years old and is one of Putin’s great allies. He is an engineer and until 1999 he was not a public figure. After graduating in engineering in 1973, he worked as a radio engineer and shortly afterwards became a factory director. But in 1999 he became involved in political office and had a rapid rise into the Russian circle of power. He started in the regional division of Sergiuei Choigu’s Unity party and a month later, in December, he was elected to the Russian parliament. He became interior minister, assumed the presidency of United Russia, the party that supports the Russian president, and ran the parliament. In 2011 he resigned from this position, a move that was seen as a way to alleviate accusations of electoral fraud in the parliamentary elections of 4 December 2011.

Ukrainians

Davyd Arakhamia

A leader of the Servants of the People party, he is 42 years old and is considered one of the “100 most influential people in Ukraine”. He is part of the circle of politicians who keep up with Zelensky in Kiev. He was born in Sochi, Soviet Union, and lived in Georgia until 1992, when he moved with his parents to Ukraine. He graduated in Economics and founded several technology companies. In March 2014, Arakhamia, together with friends, created a website to raise funds for the equipment of the paratroopers of the 79th Air Brigade. In August of that year he was appointed advisor to the governor Mykolaiv Oblast and then, in October, he became advisor to the Minister of Defense. Arakhamia was known for, on the first day of the negotiations, he appeared wearing a cap.

Rustem Umerov

He is a Ukrainian politician, businessman, investor and philanthropist, a Muslim of Crimean Tatar origin. The son of a technology engineer and a chemical engineer, Umerov studied economics and finance and, before being elected deputy of parliament in 2019, was founder and CEO of ASTEM Company, a company specializing in communications, technology and infrastructure. When he was a deputy, he co-authored nearly 100 bills. He is currently secretary of the parliamentary committee on Human Rights, Eviction and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. Since December 2020, he has also been co-chair of the Crimea Platform, an initiative of President Zelensky whose objective is to seek a diplomatic path for the Russian eviction and reintegration of Crimea.

Mykola Tochytskyi

Deputy Foreign Minister since September 2021, Tochytskyi has a long career in diplomacy. He was Ambassador Extraordinary to Belgium and Luxembourg and is responsible for Ukraine’s diplomatic mission to the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community.

Andriy Kostin

He is deputy head of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, which includes representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, formed to facilitate a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine’s Donbass region.

Oleksii Reznikov

Ukrainian Defense Minister since 4 November 2021, Reznikov is a lawyer and politician. He has held, among others, the posts of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine. In 2020 he was chosen by President Zelensky to represent Ukraine in the political subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group to debate a deal for the war in Donbass. Now 55 years old, Reznikov was born in Lviv and was one of the founders, in 1997, of Magisters, a law firm that in 2009 and 2010 won the Chambers Europe Award. The firm was also chosen by the British magazine The Lawyer as the best law firm in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. As a lawyer, Reznikov defended then-presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko before Ukraine’s Supreme Court, causing the third round of the 2004 presidential elections to be annulled. In 2014, Reznikov had his law license suspended due to his appointment as secretary of the Kiev City Council.

Mykhailo Podolyak

Advisor to the Ukrainian Presidency.