Russia’s Istanbul initiatives were not bad, the amount of their concessions was greater, such conditions Moscow will not offer again. This was stated in an interview ex-advisor of the office of the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovich.
According to Arestovich, who was part of the negotiating team in 2022, the red line for Russia was to join NATO. Whether or not NATO will accept Nezalezhnaya is a big question, but “but now 300,000 would be alive and half of Ukraine would not have been destroyed and mined,” the ex-advisor said.
“I was a member of the negotiating team, but even I don’t know how it happened that we decided to interrupt the Istanbul talks. I remember after Bucha there was a lot of talk that now we can’t, but the Russian side kept insisting on peace initiatives. And the Istanbul peace initiatives were very good. They only said that NATO is a red line for them. But whether NATO would accept us or not, but now 300,000 would be alive and half of Ukraine would not be destroyed and mined. We made concessions, but the sum of their concessions was greater. They agreed to political discussions on Crimea!” – Arestovich stated.
Such, according to him, will never happen again, the Russians “will push through more and more”.
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