Moscow accuses Kiev of breaking the ceasefire in fighting because it doesn’t want to negotiate

The Kremlin accused the Ukrainian government on Saturday of thwarting a ceasefire in fighting by refusing to negotiate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said in a statement compiled by Russian agency RIA Novosti.

According to the official version from Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered to suspend his Army’s military operations in Ukraine pending a response to his offer to negotiate in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, by the Ukrainian government. Faced with what Peskov defines as “rejection” by Kiev of this alleged Russian proposal, Putin decided to continue attacks by his Armed Forces on Ukrainian territory, always according to the spokesman’s statements compiled by the Russian agency.

On Friday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had expressed his willingness to negotiate with Moscow, once Russian troops were already on the outskirts of Kiev, including on what Russia defines as “Ukraine’s “neutrality status”; namely, the withdrawal of this country to join NATO and the European Union and to deploy weapons on its territory. The Kremlin responded to these statements by agreeing to negotiate with the Ukrainian government, but on conditions and in Minsk, the capital of its Belarusian ally.

Further, Moscow accused Zelensky of making these remarks to buy time and ensure that Kiev, after proposing to Russia to negotiate in Warsaw instead of Minsk, had cut off communications with Moscow. The Kremlin later accused Ukrainian authorities of “not wanting to negotiate,” a spokesman for the Russian presidency said Friday.

That is the argument that Peskov has remedied in his statement to Russian agents, in which he alluded to the alleged unilateral ceasefire in Russia. However, on Friday evening, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajarova, had stressed that Russia’s negotiating offer was in no way equivalent to a ceasefire. (COUNTRY and RIA Novosti)