MONITORING DESK
MOSCOW: Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom (UK), James Cleverly, has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use peace talks with Ukraine as an excuse to recruit and rearm Russian troops.
UK foreign secretary on Sunday said that talks need to be meaningful and real.
Russian President Putin said on Friday that Moscow might have to sign a deal with Kyiv to end the Ukraine war.
This was Putin’s first time publicly speaking about a possible peace deal with Ukraine.
Foreign secretary Cleverly suggested that Putin could use discussions as a cover to rearm and recruit troops.
Talks must be real and meaningful
“Talks need to be meaningful; they need to be real,” Cleverly said.
“They cannot just be a fig leaf for Russian further recruitment of soldiers and rearmament, whether that be from the trawling prisons in Russia or Wagner Group.”
Mr Cleverly argued the content of peace negotiations and the threshold that might be met to ensure peace “has to be decided by the people of Ukraine and the president of Ukraine”.
“They are the ones whose daughters and sons are being killed in this war,” Cleverly said.
The sticking point between Ukraine and Russia is likely to be over Crimea and other territories of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia.
Ukraine conditions for peace talks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has consistently said Russia must leave all occupied territories before peace talks can begin.
This includes Crimea, which Russia annexed during an illegal invasion in 2014.
Russia also annexed the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia after referendums in September that the West labelled a “sham.”
Last month, Mr Putin demanded the West formally recognize the four regions before peace talks could go on.
On Friday, he also admitted that there had been some issues procuring clothes and equipment for the hundreds of thousands of conscripts called up to fight in Ukraine.
