Ukraine will not begin peace talks with Russia after Donald Trump assumes office in the United States because Moscow has not yet paid “a high enough price” for starting the war, said Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, in an interview with the BBC.
“There’s a lot of talk about negotiations, but this is an illusion. There can be no negotiation process because Russia has not been forced to pay a high enough price for this war,” Podolyak stated to the BBC.
He also emphasized that Kyiv views security guarantees from the United States as the only condition for ending the war.
According to him, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, as well as the Minsk agreements of 2014-2015, aimed at ending the war in Donbas, have proven useless as they did not include military deterrence.
Earlier, newly-elected U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that he would quickly end the war in Ukraine after taking office on January 20.
He also mentioned that he looks forward to meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss how this could be achieved.
Putin had earlier expressed his willingness to meet with Trump and negotiate with Kyiv and seek a compromise.
In June, he outlined conditions for a ceasefire and the beginning of peaceful dialogue with Kyiv. At that time, Putin demanded that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, refuse to join NATO, and confirm its non-nuclear status.
At the same time, Western countries must lift sanctions on Russia and recognize the annexation of Crimea and four Ukrainian regions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called this yet another ultimatum and refused to discuss it.
Meanwhile, after meeting with the Ukrainian leader on December 7 in Paris, Trump said that Zelensky “wants peace” and believes “the time has come” for it.
However, Kyiv insists on its terms for negotiations, including the continued demand for a NATO invitation.
Zelensky has also publicly acknowledged that the Ukrainian military does not have the strength to reclaim Donbas and Crimea, which were seized by Russia, but Kyiv will pursue this through diplomacy.
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