Zelenskyy called Putin's «peace proposal» an ultimatum: «Hitler also said to give him part of Czechoslovakia to end the war»

Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Ukraine Recovery Conference, photo: NikVesti

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy called the Russian leader's demands for an end to hostilities «ultimate messages that are no different from the past demands» of the Russian Federation.

Reuters writes about it.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy compared Putin to Adolf Hitler and said that he will not stop the war, so the statements of the Russian leader should not be trusted.

«This is the same as what Hitler did when he said: «Give me a part of Czechoslovakia and that will be the end of it.» But no, this is a lie, a historical lie. After that, there was Poland, then the occupation of the whole of Europe,» said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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As you know, today, June 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine should declare its refusal to join NATO and withdraw troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Prior to that, in May 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again spoke about negotiations with Ukraine and said that they had never given up on them. He stated that Russia is ready to negotiate on the basis of the «Istanbul agreements».

Negotiations in Istanbul in 2022

Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul started on March 10, 2022. Then the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamiia, met with the head of the delegation from the Russian Federation, former Minister of Culture and Vladimir Putin's assistant, Volodymyr Medynskyi. After a round of negotiations, the representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the partial withdrawal of the Russian military from Kyiv and Chernihiv. Also at that time, the Russian side announced Putin's readiness to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the event of a peace treaty. However, the contract was not signed.

The representative of the Russian side Volodymyr Medynskyi and David Arakhamiia, Istanbul, 2022

A number of politicians and political scientists believed that Ukraine then lost a chance to end the war.

In November 2023, David Arakhamiia said that during the negotiations , the Russians promised to withdraw troops in exchange for Ukraine's refusal to join NATO. However, the Ukrainian side did not agree to this, as it was not sure that the Russian Federation would really withdraw from the territory of Ukraine.

The head of the Ukrainian delegation also stated in an interview with the 1+1 TV channel that this decision was influenced by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who insisted on the continuation of the war:

«When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we will not sign anything with them at all — and let's just fight.»

In June 2024, during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, in a comment to a NikVesti correspondent, David Arakhamiia said that he does not regret the conclusion of the negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022.