Zakharova Calls State Department “Liars”: “They Know Perfectly Well They Told Zelensky to Stop Peace Talks”

 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took issue with claims by State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller that Russia “has refused to engage in meaningful peace negotiations,“  saying instead that the West “know perfectly well that they told Zelensky to halt negotiations.”

Answering a question about the Ukraine conference taking place in Saudi Arabia without Russian delegates, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said on August 7 that “There are no peace negotiations going on with Russia right now, because Russia has refused to engage in meaningful peace negotiations. Should there ever be peace negotiations, it’s Ukraine that will be in the lead from the non-Russian side. The United States is happy to play any role that is productive to stand with our Ukrainian partners, and we would welcome any other country that wants to play a productive role as well.”

Kremlin Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blasted Miller’s claim: “What a bunch of liars! They know perfectly well that they told (Ukrainian President Volodomyr) Zelensky to halt negotiations in April 2022, that they initiated the Kiev regime’s ban on peace talks with Russia in September 2022, that they have publicly stated for a year that this is not the time for negotiations, but they still blame Russia,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. “Of course, there’s the possibility that the State Department spokesman isn’t aware of what his boss, the Secretary of State, says. I can’t rule it out. But if Matthew Miller reads his boss Antony Blinken’s interview from April 2023, he’ll understand that he’s either playing games or being fooled.”

“For some, the idea of a ceasefire may be tempting – and I understand that”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told German Funke Media on April 7. “But if this ends up practically ratifying the seizure of significant Ukrainian territories by Russia, it wouldn’t be a just and lasting peace… Russia needs to reach the point where it is willing to engage in constructive negotiations. The goal must be a fair and lasting peace.”

So while Blinken seems to have forestalled negotiations, Russian and the Ukraine allegedly were on the verge of reaching a settlement jsut two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb, 24, 2022. The entire war may have been avoided, according to this version of events.

In an interview on Feb. 4, 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire” before Western powers “blocked” his attempts. Bennett traveled to Russia on March 7, 2022 to meet President Vladimir Putin and try to broker a peace deal, while Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were holding talks in Belarus, the European Conservative writes.

Bennett said that “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire” and described Putin’s and Zelensky’s approach “very pragmatic.” Bennett claimed that former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson then stepped in and “advocated for more radical measures.”

“I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin” and to take a “more aggressive approach”, Bennett said. In April 2022, Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev and argued that “Putin is a war criminal” who “should be pressured, not negotiated with,” Ukrainska Pravda reported. “Even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they (the West) are not.”

Johnson’s position was that “the West now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined, and that here was a chance to ‘press him’,” Ukrainska Pravda reported May 5, 2022.

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” Soros Ukraine impeachment shill Fiona Hill and Angela Stent wrote in Foreign Affairs. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

“There will be no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains Russian leader,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on September 28, 2022.

On October 4, 2022, Zelensky signed a ban by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council that made talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin impossible. “He (Putin) does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” Zelensky said.

The West seems to have placed all their bets on the Ukrainian Spring Offensive, which has yet to achieve significant gains. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claims 43,000 Ukrainians have died since June 4 in the Ukrainian Counter-Offensive.

Remember it was a Ukrainian pro-Western paper that reported Johnson’s scuttling of the talks. Now, thanks to Hill, we know those talks actually bore fruit. The Western press, btw, continues to simply pretend this reporting doesn’t exist. https://t.co/pe6X7AK8XA

— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) August 30, 2022

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