KYIV — Ukraine’s willpower to defend its territorial integrity won’t ever flag, International Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi informed a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday, brushing apart a declare by U.S. particular envoy Steve Witkoff {that a} everlasting peace cope with Russia hangs on Kyiv’s relinquishing 5 areas presently beneath Moscow’s management.
“Ukraine is a sovereign nation, united inside internationally acknowledged borders. This place of Ukraine is immutable and can by no means change. I can inform you: by no means. Irrespective of what number of years, months, it’ll by no means change. Ukraine, because it was, will probably be inside internationally acknowledged borders,” Tykhyi stated.
Tykhyi as soon as once more outlined Ukraine’s three pink traces in peace talks with Moscow: that Kyiv won’t ever acknowledge the occupied territories as Russian; that it’s going to by no means comply with any limitations on its protection capabilities or overseas help; and that third international locations won’t have a veto over Ukraine’s alternative of which unions or alliances to affix.
“This all is Ukraine’s proper beneath worldwide legislation, not only a want record” Tykhyi added. “Russia has no proper to dictate something to Ukraine. It’s an aggression, the place there’s a state that was attacked and the attacker state. There shouldn’t be equalizing of the 2.”
Earlier this week, Witkoff, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 11, stated that Russia needs a everlasting settlement and that the peace deal Moscow has proposed consists of “5 territories of Ukraine”.
Witkoff didn’t specify which territories he meant, however Reuters reported that he had embraced the Russian place in talks with Trump. POLITICO couldn’t independently confirm this declare.
Moscow considers Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula within the Black Sea that it illegally occupied and annexed in 2014, as Russian territory.
In 2022 Russia carried out sham referendums in 4 different Ukrainian areas — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — and annexed all 4, regardless that it nonetheless doesn’t totally management these territories.
Since final summer time Putin has demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the 4 areas, together with town of Zaporizhzhia, which was by no means occupied, and town of Kherson, whose residents celebrated their liberation by Ukrainian forces in fall 2022.
Whereas Kyiv acknowledges it doesn’t have the army means to recuperate the occupied territories by pressure, it hopes that aim could be achieved via diplomacy and worldwide strain on Russia.