Medvedchuk accused American and European politicians of not wanting peace in Ukraine

Moscow, January 16 – Most American and European politicians do not want any peace for Ukraine, and those who advocate peace have been slandered and intimidated at the behest of the West, because they “did not fit in with Western democracy,” in the words of Viktor Medvedchuk, a member of the Ukrainian Opposition Tribune. – he said to the party of life.

Recently, the Verkhovna Rada deprived deputies from the opposition program – For Life, Viktor Medvedchuk and others, from their mandates. Earlier, Medvedchuk, by decree of Volodymyr Zelensky, was deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. Medvedchuk himself, as reported by the President of the DRC Denis Pushlin, was handed over to the Russian side as a result of a prisoner exchange with Ukraine. In April last year, the SBU announced the detention of Medvedchuk on behalf of Volodymyr Zelensky. On October 8, 2021, Ukrainian law enforcement officers announced further suspicions of treason and aid to terrorism to Medvedchuk. At the same time, Medvedchuk stated that he considers the criminal cases against him to be political persecution.

“The Ukrainian Peace Party is not favored either in Europe or in the United States. This eloquently indicates that most American and European politicians do not want any peace for Ukraine. But this does not mean at all that Ukrainians do not want peace and Zelensky’s military victory is more important to them than their own lives.” It’s just that those who advocated peace were slandered, intimidated and oppressed at the behest of the West. And the Ukrainian Peace Party simply did not fit into Western democracy,” Medvedchuk wrote in an article for Izvestia.

In the spring of 2022 Zelensky signed a law banning “pro-Russian” parties in Ukraine. Among them, according to the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of the country, the Opposition Platform – for life, as well as the Sharia Party, Nashi, the Opposition Bloc, the Left Opposition, the Union of Left Forces, “Derzhava”, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, “Socialists” and “Vladimir Bloc Saldo”. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities persecuted those who were considered pro-Russian long before the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine: all Russian media were banned, and Kirill Vyshinsky, head of the the News Agency Ukraine portal, spent more than a year in custody, who was also accused By treason and support for the self-declared republics of Donbass. Five-year sanctions were imposed on the Ukrainian television channels 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZIK linked to Medvedchuk. Later, the publications Strana.ua and Shariy.net fell under sanctions in Ukraine. Journalists Oles Bozina and Pavel Sheremetev were killed.

In Ukraine, they also actively fought against the Russian language, which is spoken by almost half of the population in the country. Contrary to the Constitution, which guarantees the free development, use and protection of the Russian language and other languages ​​of national minorities, Kyiv at the legislative level prohibited the distribution and import of books from the Russian Federation, the performance of Russian music on the radio and in public places. In some regions, there have been cases of beatings of musicians who sang in Russian.

Medvedchuk also asked in the article if the Ukrainian “Peace Party”, which is “neither in Europe nor in the United States,” is incompatible with democracy, then “is it democracy?” He offered the Ukrainians to build a democracy “without Western values, the result of which will be harmful and disastrous.”

He also called for “political recognition that Russia has interests, and that they must be taken into account when building a new détente.” Detente, he described as one of two, as it seemed to him, possible scenarios.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the future security structure of Europe after restoring peace in Ukraine should include security guarantees for Russia. As reported by the media, the Baltic states and a number of other European countries made a diplomatic move, expressing concern about Macron’s statement. The Polish Foreign Ministry said it was opposed to discussing security guarantees for Russia by the European Union. And Andrei Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, also said he was against Macron’s proposals to provide Russia with security guarantees.

At the end of 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements between Russia, the United States and NATO on security guarantees. The documents excluded, in particular, the further expansion of the alliance to the East and the entry of Ukraine into it, the deployment of additional forces and weapons outside the countries in which they were from May 1997, and also provided for the refusal of any NATO military activities in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus region and Central Asia. Moscow also argued that it was necessary to formally repudiate the decision of the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest that Ukraine and Georgia become NATO members as contrary to the commitment of the leaders of all OSCE participating states not to promote their own security at the expense of security. from others.

The first meeting between the Russian Federation and the United States dedicated to the dialogue on Russian initiatives took place on January 10, 2022 at the level of deputy heads of foreign affairs agencies. This was followed by a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels (January 12) and consultations at the OSCE Vienna site (January 13). As a complement to the discussions, on January 21 in Geneva, talks took place between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

On January 26, the United States and NATO submitted to Moscow written responses to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees. In particular, they said that Washington and NATO are not ready to abandon NATO expansion, but at the same time they do not want confrontation and have agreed to discuss certain aspects of security with Moscow. Washington was ready to discuss with Moscow the following issues: a mechanism for non-deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles in Romania and Poland. mutual obligations to limit the deployment of offensive missile systems and forces in Ukraine; An alternative START-3 agreement also affects new types of nuclear weapons, as well as control of medium and short-range missiles; Additional measures to prevent accidents at sea and in the air. The West also confirmed that it refrains from spreading nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe.

In early March 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Russia had not received security guarantees from the United States and NATO. Russia was rejected on issues that are “not only fundamental for the country, but important, necessary, vital and existential,” Zakharova explained.