Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has demanded that any future peace agreement for Ukraine contain conditions that do not allow the election and formation of a pro-Western government in Kiev, writes the Institute for the Study of War on its website, quoted by BTA.
The Washington-based think tank quoted Lavrov as saying yesterday that it is necessary to prevent "a repetition of what brought the putschists to power through a bloody revolution", referring to the Maidan protests that led to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
The Russian foreign minister also repeated President Vladimir Putin's thesis that his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky is not the country's legitimate head of state and can negotiate with the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada (the unicameral parliament of the neighboring country), notes the Institute for the Study of War. American analysts comment on this occasion that representatives of the Russian authorities are deliberately misinterpreting the Ukrainian constitution, claiming that Zelensky has no legitimacy, since his mandate expired last year, given that the fundamental law does not allow holding elections in conditions of martial law and external aggression.
Yesterday, Lavrov spoke on a number of topics related to Ukraine, suggesting that holding elections would be the "optimal option" for determining who will sign the future peace agreement on its side.
/НС/
Source: www.bta.bg