Moscow-Sana
The head of the Russian negotiating delegation with the Ukrainian side, Vladimir Medinsky, announced that tangible progress has been made in bilateral talks, especially with regard to ensuring Ukraine's neutral status and its abandonment of the idea of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
"Ukraine's neutrality and non-joining of NATO is one of the main points of the talks, and this is the point on which the two sides were able to bring their positions closer to the maximum," Medinsky said in a statement today, reported by Russia Today.
Medinsky indicated that the matter in this regard is currently related to some details related to what are the additional security guarantees that will be provided to Ukraine in the event that it abandons the idea of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The chief Russian negotiator pointed out that the two sides are about half way on the issue of disarmament in Ukraine, noting that he is not authorized to reveal any specific details of the negotiating process.
On the issue of the eradication of Nazism from Ukraine, Medinsky described the situation in the talks in this regard as "strange", explaining that the Kyiv authorities deny the existence of any Nazi formations in their lands.
Medinsky said that the Ukrainian negotiators ignore facts that concern the whole world, including the activities and training of Nazi armed formations in the territory of this country and the names of Nazi criminals on the streets of large cities in it. The second world is a ground for the present world order.
Medinsky stressed that it is not permissible to talk about the possibility of holding a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, unless the text of an agreement between Moscow and Kiev is drafted and coordinated.
Russia continues its special military operation in Ukraine, which it launched at the dawn of the 24th of last February, aimed at protecting the residents of Donbass.