The Bucha massacre jeopardizes negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

The negotiations between Russia and Ukraine – taking stock of what has happened this Wednesday since the last face-to-face meeting in Istanbul almost a week ago – are at a very sensitive juncture.

There is a great risk that they will be suspended after Kyiv, it asserts, discovered the extent of the massacre of civilians in Bucha and other cities left in its wake by Russian troops, while Moscow feels exposed by the killings of civilians that it claims it hasn’t committed and they’re just trying to undo the deals already made.

Sooner or later, who is telling the truth will become known, and an impartial international investigation must clarify what happened in the destroyed Ukrainian cities. Meanwhile, what makes it most difficult to understand the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine is to accept the version of one of the parties as true, without evidence to corroborate the facts attributed to the enemy.

Amid conflicting versions that only try to shift blame on the opponent, there is no shortage of political scientists like Timofei Sergeitsev, who use the tribune of a Russian state news agency like RIA Novosti to announce that not only must Ukraine be “denazified”, but intends to “de-Ukrainize” the neighboring and formerly fraternal Slavic country.

In his opinion, “the majority of the Ukrainian population has adopted Nazi ideology” and that the only way “to kill a Nazi who has taken up arms is to destroy him on the battlefield”.

Sergueitsev published his “Manifesto,” which advocates wiping a country that shouldn’t exist from the face of the earth to turn it into a simple Russian province, before the world heard the Ukrainian government’s explanation for what it calls Bucha’s “genocide.” , knew. .

The publicized presence of members of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s bodyguards with photos of their “heroic exploits” in front of destroyed houses in street-by-street fighting in various Ukrainian cities, as well as Russian and foreign mercenaries killing for money, make President Volodymyr’s words Zelenskyj credible when he speaks of “atrocities” by Russian troops.

Video: La Jornada – Russia and Ukraine resume negotiations in Istanbul (La Jornada)

La Jornada – Russia and Ukraine resume negotiations in Istanbul

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AFTER

Journalist Oleg Kashin, one of the most critical of Kremlin politics, from his exile in London after acknowledging that the Ukrainian government’s accusations are not enough to blame the Russian army and that it is very difficult to Establish responsibility for each individual “If you don’t want to be prosecuted for war crimes, you should simply not start a war.”

Lavrov’s version

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on the other hand, explains why the Ukrainians carried out a “monstrous provocation”. He claims in a special statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website that it was no coincidence that Ukraine “put on this show” to block the negotiations.

He did so, he emphasizes, shortly after “Kyiv had written in Istanbul to agree to be a neutral, non-nuclear country that would not belong to any bloc or permit the establishment of foreign military bases.”

According to Lavrov, “Kyiv undertook that the security guarantees it would receive in return would not include Crimea or Donbass.” Therefore, “we have reason to believe that the Bucha scandal was made to divert attention and retrace the negotiations.”

And he warns: “If the Ukrainian delegation continues, as before, categorically refuses to talk about the demilitarization and denazification of their country, to restore the use of the Russian language, to say that there are no problems with the rights of the Russian-born population and the Nazification of all spheres of life in Ukraine, I don’t think this will contribute to the success of the negotiation process.”

For the Russian foreign minister, real and not fictitious progress in negotiations requires that “Kyiv does not engage in sabotage”. Moscow does not agree that in the event of a peace agreement with Kyiv, Russian troops must leave Ukraine, the agreements must be ratified by parliaments and, moreover, approved in a referendum.

Because “if the deal is rejected, it would go back to where it started. We do not want the fate of the Minsk agreements to repeat itself. We cannot allow that,” Lavrov stressed.

© Provided by La Jornada Russian artillery shelled the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv as the West prepares more sanctions against Moscow in response to civilian killings around Kyiv, Reuters reports. About Graphic News

Russian artillery shelled the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv as the West prepares further sanctions against Moscow in response to the killing of civilians around Kyiv, Reuters reports. About Graphic News