17 June 2023 – Putin with African leaders.mp4
Notes:
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71451/videos
‘Speaking of negotiations, Russia has never rejected the idea of negotiations. With the assistance of President Erdogan, an entire series of rounds of negotiations took place in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine. Those negotiations were centred on confidence building measures and even drafting a treaty. The treaty was not supposed to be confidential, but we have never made it public before. This draft treaty was approved, was initialled, by the head of Ukrainian negotiators. Here is the document with his signature [Putin shows the document to the room]. It is called ‘A Treaty of Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine’. 18 articles, there are addenda and annexes that have to do with the armed forces and other things. Everything is spelled out, including the number of units of military equipment and personnel of the armed forces. The document is right here, and it was initialled by the Kyiv delegation. Their signatures are there. But when we withdrew our troops from Kyiv, the Kyiv authorities, following the example of their masters, simply threw this all away to the dustbin of history. They rejected that. Even in these conditions we have never rejected the idea of negotiating with them. It wasn’t us, it was the leadership of Ukraine who said that they would not negotiate with us. We have never rejected the idea of negotiations.’
‘Speaking of negotiations, Russia has never rejected the idea of negotiations. With the assistance of President Erdogan, an entire series of rounds of negotiations took place in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine. Those negotiations were centred on confidence building measures and even drafting a treaty. The treaty was not supposed to be confidential, but we have never made it public before. This draft treaty was approved, was initialled, by the head of Ukrainian negotiators. Here is the document with his signature [Putin shows the document to the room]. It is called ‘A Treaty of Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine’. 18 articles, there are addenda and annexes that have to do with the armed forces and other things. Everything is spelled out, including the number of units of military equipment and personnel of the armed forces. The document is right here, and it was initialled by the Kyiv delegation. Their signatures are there. But when we withdrew our troops from Kyiv, the Kyiv authorities, following the example of their masters, simply threw this all away to the dustbin of history. They rejected that. Even in these conditions we have never rejected the idea of negotiating with them. It wasn’t us, it was the leadership of Ukraine who said that they would not negotiate with us. We have never rejected the idea of negotiations.’