Russia Sets Conditions for Stopping Operation

Date: 07 March 2022 - 22:07

News ID: ۱۰۰۷۷۳

LVIV, Ukraine (Dispatches) -- The bodies of 13 civilians were recovered from rubble after an airstrike on a bread factory in the Ukrainian town of Makariv in the Kiev region on Monday, local emergency services said in an online statement.
Five people were rescued, it said, adding that in total around 30 people were believed to have been at the factory before the attack.
Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations “in a moment” if Kiev meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said.
Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.
Russia has attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, pounding cities including Kiev, Kharkiv and the port of Mariupol.
But the Kremlin spokesman insisted Russia was not seeking to make any further territorial claims on Ukraine and said it was “not true” that it was demanding Kiev be handed over.
“We really are finishing the demilitarization of Ukraine. We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action

and then no one will shoot,” he said.

On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: “They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc.”

The outlining of Russia’s demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet on Monday for a third round of talks aimed at ending the conflict.

Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from NATO, saying it was “only a matter of time” before the alliance placed missiles in Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.

More than 1.7 million Ukrainians have so far crossed into Central Europe, the United Nation’s refugee agency said, as thousands more streamed across the borders.

Poland - which has the largest Ukrainian community in Central Europe - has received more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees since the conflict began on Feb. 24, with the milestone passed late on Sunday.

“This is a million human tragedies, a million people banished from their homes by the war,” the Polish border guard service tweeted late on Sunday.

A total of 1,735,068 civilians - mostly women and children, as men stayed home to fight - have so far crossed the border into Central Europe, the UNHCR said.

The European Union could see as many as 5 million Ukrainian refugees if Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine continues, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation”.

Some Ukrainians have already passed through Central Europe, heading west.

However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected calls for Britain to ease visa demands on Ukrainian refugees fleeing conflict.

Responding to criticism Britain was not doing enough and was far behind its European neighbors in helping address the continent’s biggest humanitarian crisis since World War Two, Johnson said:

“We are a very, very generous country. What we want though is control and we want to be able to check.” he told reporters. “I think it’s sensible given what’s going on in Ukraine to make sure that we have some basic ability to check who is coming in.”

The British government has been condemned by charities, opposition lawmakers and France after its insistence that refugees first acquire a visa meant some Ukrainians have been stuck in the French city of Calais, unable to enter Britain, and provoking a diplomatic row.

The European Union has agreed to grant temporary residency to Ukrainians fleeing the invasion and give them access to employment, social welfare and housing for up to three years.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Britain was not doing nearly enough. It should let refugees in and deal with the paperwork later, she said.

Western states will announce more sanctions against Russia, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Monday during a visit to Romania.

“We have imposed with Romania through the EU very important, severe sanctions, and there will be more sanctions announced very soon,” Joly told a news conference, adding that G7 countries and the European Union were looking at further restrictions but without elaborating.

She said the goal of the sanctions was to suffocate Russia’s economy and make it change course in Ukraine. Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu told the same news conference various options were being discussed at the moment.

However, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China’s friendship with Russia is “rock solid” and the prospects for cooperation are very broad.

Cooperation between the two countries brings benefits and well-being to the two peoples, he told his annual news conference on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament.