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Russia-Ukraine war
REUTERS
Turkey has positioned itself with great care to be the go-between with
Russia and Ukraine - and this seems to be paying off.
Withi h lf h f th di f th h ll I i t i dM E d '
Within half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan's
leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small
group of officials who had listened in on the call.
The first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine
to meet.
There are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving
elements for the Russian side.
The second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr
Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and
President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr
Zelensky has already said he's prepared to meet the Russian president and
negotiate with him one-to-one.
Mr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they
involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already
broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of
Crimea.
Although Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will
demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern
Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.
The other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally
accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now
belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to
swallow.
Still, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and
they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction
which Russia has visited on Ukraine.
Given his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too
hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory.
If the fine details of any agreement aren't sorted out with immense care,
President Putin or his successors could always use them as an excuse to
invade Ukraine again.
A peace deal could take a long time to sort out, even if a ceasefire stops the
bloodshed in the meantime.
Ukraine has suffered appallingly over the past few weeks, and rebuilding the
towns and cities which Russia has damaged and destroyed will take a long
time. So will rehousing the millions of refugees who have fled their homes.
What about Vladimir Putin himself? There have been suggestions that he is ill,
or possibly even mentally unbalanced. Did Mr Kalin detect anything strange
about him in the phone call? Not at all, he said. Mr Putin had apparently been
clear and concise in everything he said.
More and more people will realise that he overreached himself badly, and
stories of the soldiers who have been killed or captured are already spreading
fast.
IN DEPTH F ll f th fli t
IN DEPTH: Full coverage of the conflict
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