Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine through dialogue, Chinese state television CCTV reported.
The leaders spoke by phone on Friday, the broadcaster said.
CCTV also reported that Putin had said that Russia was willing to hold high-level talks with Ukraine.
“The United States and NATO have long ignored Russia’s reasonable security concerns, repeatedly reneged on their commitments, and continued to push forward with the deployment of the military eastward in defiance of Russia’s strategic outcomes,” Putin said. Xiaccording to the broadcaster.
“Russia is willing to conduct high-level negotiations with Ukraine,” he added.
After the call, the Kremlin reported that Putin had agreed to open negotiations with the Ukrainian government after the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to discuss “Ukraine neutrality”.
“We notified the Ukrainians of a proposal to talk about [o acordo] from Minsk”, reads one of the messages from the Russian government.
Putin also called Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, to arrange talks with Ukraine, concludes the Kremlin message on the matter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is ready to send a delegation to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, for talks with Ukraine, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported, which Ukraine said was ” considering”.
“As you know, today the president of Ukraine announced his willingness to discuss Ukraine’s neutral status,” Peskov said, according to RIA. “Initially, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the purpose of the operation was to help the LPR and the DPR [Repúblicas Populares de Donetsk e Luhansk, estados separatistas no leste da Ucrânia recentemente reconhecidos pela Rússia como independentes], including through the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. And that, in fact, is an integral component of neutral status,” Peskov said.
The 2015 Minsk agreement was drawn up in the Belarusian capital in a bid to end what was then a 10-month bloody conflict in eastern Ukraine. But it was never fully implemented, with its main problems still unresolved.
Earlier this Friday afternoon (25), in a video message, Zelensky asked for direct conversations with Putin. He did not directly propose neutral status, but signaled a willingness to discuss it, while insisting that Ukraine receive security guarantees.
“Today we hear from Moscow what they want to say. They want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status. I asked all the partners in the State if they are with us. They are with us, but they are not ready to make us an alliance with them. We are not afraid to talk to Russia, we are not afraid to talk about everything, about security guarantees for our country. We are not afraid to talk about neutral status,” added Zelensky.
On Thursday (24), in a video posted on his Facebook profile, Zelensky said he had talked to 27 European leaders about Ukraine’s entry into NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and that he had not received any responses. “They’re all scared.”
The Ukrainian president also stated, for the first time, that he was open to discussing any issue with Russia, including Ukraine’s neutrality.
understand the conflict
After months of military escalation and intemperance on the Ukrainian border, Russia attacked the Eastern European country. At dawn this Thursday (24), Russian forces began to bomb several regions of the country – follow the repercussion live on CNN.
Hours earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a “special military operation” in the Donbas region (eastern Ukraine, where the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk are located, which he recognized as independent).
What was seen in the following hours, however, was an attack on almost the entire Ukrainian territory, with explosions in several cities, including the capital Kiev.
According to Ukrainian officials, dozens of deaths have been confirmed in the armies of both countries.
In his speech before the attack, Putin justified the action by saying that Russia could not “tolerate threats from Ukraine”. Putin urged Ukrainian soldiers to “put down your weapons and go home”. The Russian leader further stated that he will not accept any kind of foreign interference.
This attack on the former Soviet neighbor threatens to destabilize Europe and involve the United States.
Russia has been tightening its military grip around Ukraine for the past year, amassing tens of thousands of troops, equipment and artillery at the country’s gates.
In recent weeks, diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions have been unsuccessful.
The escalation in the years-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine has triggered the continent’s biggest security crisis since the Cold War, raising the specter of a dangerous confrontation between Western powers and Moscow.
(From Sarah Marsh and Madeline Chambers of Reuters and Eliza Mackintosh of CNN)
Source: CNN Brasil
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