PRESS RELEASE : Mykhailo Podolyak – Ukraine’s position in negotiations with Russia will depend on success on the frontline

The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 11 April 2022.

In negotiations with the Russian Federation, Ukraine will do its utmost to end the war taking into account its national interests and to obtain reliable international guarantees to prevent such wars in the future. This was stated by Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak in an interview for the host of the TV channel “Ukraine 24” Tygran Martyrosyan.

“We have the Istanbul Communiqué, which clearly spells out Ukraine’s position. It is unchanged. We want to get a formulaic solution: both the possibility of ending the war and preventing similar wars in the future. Because today’s situation has shown that Ukraine is left alone with an expansionist empire that invests a lot of money in military technology. And if it remains more or less in its current form, in a year or two it will invade someone’s territory again,” Mykhailo Podolyak said.

According to him, even when the aggressor continues to attack Ukrainian cities, negotiations must be held, because our state must use all the tools to end the war on its own terms and with the least losses among the civilian population.

At the same time, Mykhailo Podolyak reiterated that issues related to territorial integrity and sovereignty remain inviolable for Ukraine.

The Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office noted that Ukraine’s goal is not a bilateral peace agreement with Russia, which will not fulfill it, but multilateral security guarantees that will prevent a repeat of such a war against our state.

“We want to have a specific formula that Ukraine is sitting at the negotiating table, the aggressor country – the Russian Federation is sitting at the negotiating table, and next to Ukraine are the countries that will guarantee Russia’s commitment not to attack,” he explained.

Mykhailo Podolyak noted that due to the imposed international sanctions, negative protest sentiments are already growing in Russia, and that is why the Russian authorities are forced to enter into negotiations to fix a certain current position. But the longer it delays the process, the higher the price will be for it.

According to him, Russia is now concentrating on the eastern direction – Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk – to prove to the world that it still knows how to fight.

“Because today, on the 47th day of the war, it proved to the world that it can’t fight – it can only stab,” Mykhailo Podolyak is convinced.

He noted that the Ukrainian army is ready to fight the occupiers.

“Either we or they have to gain a significant advantage on the battlefield. Only after that our positions in the negotiating group will be significantly strengthened and, of course, we will get what Ukraine needs. The negotiating team will definitely not work contrary to what is happening on the battlefield and certainly not against the way President Zelenskyy sees the whole situation, and he sees it much more clearly,” said the Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President.

In view of this, as Mykhailo Podolyak noted, it is worth waiting for the situation in eastern Ukraine to unfold in the coming weeks.

“And if we can prove once again that the Russian army is a rudiment, a useless institution, then we will have a great opportunity to prove that Russia as a state must stop dictating any conditions in the world,” said the Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office.