The conditions put forward by Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine cannot be called a proposal for peace, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said. In his opinion, Putin's demands border on the absurd and are a "travesty of international law".
"It is not Ukraine that should withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory, but Russia," Stoltenberg stressed, adding that Putin's condition, which provides for the exact opposite, "does not reflect the goodwill" of the Russian president, but his desire to "achieve military goals" in Ukraine.
"That is, this is not a peaceful proposal, but a proposal that provides for an even greater occupation," Stoltenberg stated.
In this regard, the NATO Secretary General stressed that the alliance countries will continue to provide military support to Kyiv.
U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin also commented on Putin's statements regarding the conditions for ending the war in Ukraine. According to the head of the Pentagon, Putin cannot set conditions because Russian troops illegally invaded Ukrainian territory.
"Putin occupied, illegally occupied the sovereign territory of Ukraine. He can in no way dictate to Ukraine what it must do to establish peace," the US defence secretary said.
"Hundreds of thousands of his troops have been killed or wounded in this unjust and unprovoked invasion. He could end it today if he truly wanted to. And we urge him to do so and leave the sovereign territory of Ukraine," Austin said during a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels.
On 14 June, at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Putin declared his readiness to end the war with Ukraine if it gives up four of its occupied regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – and withdraws its troops. At the same time, he demands that the transfer of these territories, as well as Crimea and Sevastopol, to Russian control be recorded in international documents.
In addition, Putin said that Ukraine should abandon its plans to join NATO, agree to a "neutral, non-aligned, non-nuclear status", and undergo "denuclearisation" and "demilitarisation", ensuring the rights of the Russian-speaking population and recognising "new territorial realities".
In turn, the West should lift all sanctions against Russia, Putin stressed. He called these conditions a "peaceful proposal" that would allow "to really end the war" and gradually "step by step" begin to restore "good neighbourly relations" with Ukraine. Putin put the responsibility for the consequences of rejecting his plan on Kyiv and the West in advance, threatening them with "continued bloodshed".
To recap, Zelensky responded to Putin's "conditions for ending the war". He compared the Russian dictator to Hitler, recalling that the latter began his conquest of Europe by demanding that part of Czechoslovakia be given to him.