MUNICH, GERMANY – Donald Trump’s Ukraine negotiations are little more than a “KGB operation” that have not brought the country an inch closer to peace, Ukraine’s former prime minister has told The i Paper.
Trump’s White House has been brokering talks over ending Russia’s war in Ukraine since returning to the White House early last year, but they have so far failed to yield results.
Talks are stalling, with Russia demanding that Ukraine cede large swathes of land in the east in order to agree a ceasefire.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who served two terms as prime minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2016, described the talks as a “sham”.
“I do not envisage this as talks,” he said, speaking to The i Paper at Munich Security Conference. “I call it sham talks, sham consultations. It’s a special KGB operation under the auspices of [Vladimir] Putin. It has nothing to do with any kind of real negotiations.”
The Russian President is a former officer in the KGB, the notorious secret police and intelligence service during the final decades of the Soviet Union whose officers were taught the art of influence and manipulation. Putin later became director of its successor organisation, the FSB.
Yatsenyuk said the talks had not moved Ukraine forward “an inch”, adding: “Even worse, these talks paved the way for Putin” by giving a platform for maximalist demands.
Yatsenyuk said the talks had not moved Ukraine forward ‘an inch’ (Photo: Andrew Kravchenko/Global Images Ukraine/Getty)“The US President still believes that he can convince Putin. But there is only one way to convince Putin, which is to press like hell on him,” he said. “He understands only the language of strength. The rest he reads as a sign of weakness.”
Trump has suggested that Ukraine will need to cede territory to Russia in order to secure a peace deal, with a 28-point peace proposal drawn up at the end of last year demanding that Ukraine surrender parts of the east that Russia has been unable to take militarily.
Russia occupies around 20 per cent of Ukraine and has changed its constitution to lay claim to the land.
But Yatsenyuk said there was nothing that Ukraine could give to Russia that would secure a lasting peace.
Russia has continued its strikes on Ukraine despite the peace talks (Photo: Ukraine Armed Forces/Reuters)“Some people believe that if Ukraine cedes land, Russians will be eager to sign the peace deal. It’s complete nonsense. This would never happen, because Russia sticks to its maximalistic demands,” he said.
“Ukraine and Russia’s positions are irreconcilable completely, and Americans and Europeans have to realise that there is no way to convince Russia to accept any kind of fair peace deal that at least sticks to some kind of international norms.”
West must ramp up pressure on Russian oil
Instead, Yatsenyuk said that the only way to force peace into Ukraine was to apply significant economic pressure to Russia to jeopardise Putin’s leadership, with secondary sanctions on those buying Russian oil – the lifeblood of its war economy – and blocks on the “shadow fleet” of ships which deliver the product.
He also called for action on Russia’s allies like China – which has been the largest purchaser of Russian crude oil and supplied critical components like machine tools and microelectronics – and North Korea, which has sent troops to Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this weekend that it was not yet clear if Russia was serious about agreeing peace.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (Photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters)Yatsenyuk said that even Rubio had begun “questioning the sincerity so-called of these talks”, saying it had “dawned on the US that nothing is really happening on the ground”.
But Nato secretary general Mark Rutte insisted that peace negotiations were on track and that the US was supporting Ukraine in ways only it could, like supplying Patriot missiles.
“It was only the American president who was able to bring Putin to the negotiating table and then I’m not going to criticise him,” Rutte said, adding that Trump had his “best team” on the case. “It always takes time to get these difficult things done.”
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