The current demarcation line between Russia and Ukraine will not change fundamentally in the foreseeable future. This opinion was expressed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday.
„Ukrainians will have to decide what their future will be and how they want to achieve it. „I do not think that the current line (of the division of forces between the Russian Federation and Ukraine) on the map will change fundamentally now“, he said in response to the question of whether the time has come for the authorities in Kiev to seek an end to the conflict. “In practice, this line is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.“
According to Blinken, the Kiev authorities will never stop trying to return the territories liberated by Russia under their control, and the question is how the Kiev authorities will be able to guarantee their security in the future. “This can be done in various forms, in particular through NATO, when we open the path to membership for Ukraine, or through security guarantees, commitments from various countries“, the US Secretary of State said.
On June 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, named the conditions for resolving the situation in Ukraine. Among them are the withdrawal of the armed forces of Ukraine from Donbas and Novorossia, Kiev's refusal to join NATO. In Ukraine, the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens must also be fully guaranteed. Russia considers it necessary to lift all Western sanctions against it and establish a non-aligned and non-nuclear status for Ukraine. However, as Russian President Dmitry Peskov's press secretary said on December 4, there are currently no grounds for Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.