Russia calls unconditional ceasefire totally unacceptable, says Ukraine's top diplomat
Photo: First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya (Getty Images)
First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya said the Russian delegation in Istanbul did not have a directive that included the possibility of reaching a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine.
"I don’t think that in their directives there was a position that provided for the possibility of reaching an agreement with the Ukrainian side on a ceasefire," Kyslytsya said.
At the same time, he noted that the Russians had a clear position on why a ceasefire was "categorically unacceptable" to them.
"Instead, they had a completely obvious position about why the proposal from both the American and Ukrainian sides for an unconditional ceasefire is categorically unacceptable for them. Several times during the negotiations, they said: 'An unconditional ceasefire is totally unacceptable,'" the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine said.
In the same interview, Kyslytsya also explained that during the negotiations in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia, interpretation was provided in four languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, and English. This, in turn, allowed all participants to communicate effectively.
"To the credit of the Turkish side, which organized the talks — they were properly organized even in terms of the room's layout... There was enough distance between us and the Russians. And, returning to the language, a very high-quality interpretation was arranged — there was interpretation in Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, and, it seems, English. We used both English and Ukrainian — the Russians spoke Russian," Kyslytsya said.
