Senior Russian diplomat says diplomatic settlement with Ukraine 'not apparent'
Prospects for a diplomatic settlement with Ukraine "are not apparent today," a senior Russian diplomat said on Thursday, ahead of the first anniversary of the military conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.
Speaking to the state-run TASS news agency, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin called Kyiv's "dependence in decision-making" as a problem in holding dialogue.
He said the peace process that started last year was interrupted by Ukraine "at the insistence of Washington, London and Brussels."
According to his assessment, "the Anglo-Saxons are doing everything possible to make the war in Ukraine as bloody as possible and to prevent any substantive negotiations on a peaceful settlement."
"If the West and Kyiv want to sit down at the negotiating table, they must first of all stop shelling Russian cities and lay down their arms. After that, it will be possible to conduct a discussion on the basis of new geopolitical realities," the diplomat said.
Asked about the establishment of a safe zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Galuzin said talks are ongoing, and it would be "premature" to make any details public.
"The dialogue on the zone is not easy to develop, but its main goal is defined -- to do everything necessary to prevent Ukrainian attacks on the station and prevent an emergency, especially a man-made disaster with unpredictable consequences," he said.
Azerbaijan-Armenia, Moldova
Turning to relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Galuzin said there are a lot of obstacles on the path to peace, as the conflict takes its roots in history.
"In order to reach a final settlement, time and patience are needed, the formation of such conditions that would ensure the strength, reliability and stability of bilateral agreements leading to the creation of an atmosphere of mutual trust," he stressed.
The official said Moscow welcomes any initiatives aimed at supporting efforts on normalization of relations, adding that "the main thing is to avoid duplication and competition."
About another frozen conflict, in Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway state, Galuzin said the situation has significantly worsened since last year due to the course taken by Moldovan authorities.
According to him, the pro-Western Moldovan government has started abandoning agreements and cutting all forms of interaction with Transnistria.
Anti-Russian agenda in Central Asia
Galuzin said the US and the EU are stepping up cooperation with Central Asian countries to pursue its "anti-Russian agenda."
"Our partners are required to condemn the special operation in Ukraine, join illegal anti-Russian sanctions, and curtail cooperation with our country as a whole.
"In return, they promise some ephemeral 'support for economic development' and other 'dividends, they say that they are supposedly able to become a 'profitable alternative' to Moscow and Beijing," he said.
The diplomat argued that by proposing economic cooperation, the West is trying to coax the Central Asian countries to agree on the deployment of its military infrastructure in the region.
"At the same time, non-governmental organizations controlled by the United States and the EU, bloggers and the media, operating in Central Asia, are trying to make Russia an enemy of the Central Asian peoples, fostering nationalist and Russophobic sentiments in society," he said.
The goal is obvious -- to undermine the relations of alliance and strategic partnership between Russia and the Central Asian countries, to destroy the integration processes in the post-Soviet space, the official stressed.
He said Washington's "good services" to the region left Afghanistan in ruins, and Kazakhstan was torn by riots last January.
"The stability and security of Central Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States as a whole is primarily the task of our states, and not of non-regional players pursuing, as noted above, dubious goals," he said.
Source: Anadolu Agency