Russian Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, the chief negotiator in the meetings between Ukraine and Russian representatives at the Istanbul talks, conducted an interview on May 16 with the Rossiya-1 TV channel, posted here with AI-generated English audio translation.
He said that at the negotiations, it was important to remind Ukraine about agreements reached in Gomel, Belarus, and in Istanbul in February and March 2022.
Those agreements included Ukraine renouncing its effort to join NATO, becoming permanently neutral (not joining any military alliance), and restoring the Russian language as one of official state languages of Ukraine, on equal footing with Ukrainian, among other stipulations.
In the interview, Medinsky said, “It was the key topic because we are considering the talks as the resumption of the Istanbul process, so it was important to reiterate what we agreed on in Gomel back at the end of February and how all this would have ended, had Ukraine agreed to peace at the end of February. They did not agree, they were dragging their feet and after that the next stage of agreements was in Istanbul.”
He pointed out how common it was to negotiate during the fighting, not only in a condition of ceasefire.
