Is Russia Serious About Peace Talks?

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00:00Deputy Ambassador Poliansky, what do you make of that?

00:03Is Russia not seriously negotiating here?

00:05Is that perhaps why we're seeing the US president changing his tone

00:10towards the Russian president?

00:12On the contrary, Russia has been seriously negotiating from day one.

00:16By the way, the last comment, I think it's quite a common one

00:20for a person who starts history from February 2022

00:25as if nothing previously has happened in Ukraine and elsewhere.

00:30So this is a very shallow view.

00:32And there are less and less such views in the United Nations, thankfully.

00:37But nevertheless, we still face some of these commentaries.

00:41And from day one, I think even long before the beginning

00:47of our special military operation, Russia was ready to solve a Ukrainian issue,

00:52a Ukrainian crisis through negotiations.

00:55We proposed very serious security arrangements to the West

00:59at the end of 2021, which were rejected.

01:03From day one, we said that we would prefer a diplomatic solution to this,

01:08and diplomatic solution would entail addressing the root causes of this conflict.

01:13And that is the thing that we, from day one, again, told President Trump

01:17that in order to solve this issue, in order to have sustainable,

01:20long-lasting peace, we need to address root causes of this conflict.

01:24And we are still on this position.

01:26Nothing has changed there.

01:28So Russia has been very consistent.

01:30Whereas the others, those who were creating Ukrainian crisis,

01:34those who were responsible for the project anti-Russia,

01:38which was implemented in Ukraine, has been implemented since at least 2014.

01:44Of course, these people are not interested in any kind of settlement.

01:47You know that Ukraine was very close to have a peaceful deal and settlement in Russia in 2022,

01:56in April, when Russian troops were not far from Kiev.

02:01And as a gesture of goodwill, we withdrew our troops then from Kiev.

02:05But then certain Mr. Johnson came there and kind of undermined all the efforts that were leading to peace.

02:14I think that's very consistent for British diplomacy to undermine every peace efforts.

02:19And that's what they are doing right now in connection to the talks that are continuing in Istanbul.

02:26I think there's some rewriting of history going on here.

02:28It was Russia, of course, that invaded Crimea back in 2014 when I was Defence Secretary.

02:33It was Russia who began the incursions into the Donbass.

02:36If you call a referendum of people when more than 90% wished to join Russia,

02:45if you call it invasion, then of course.

02:46And who was there who implemented this coup in Kiev in February 2014?

02:55Do you absolutely deny it?

02:58Do you think that it never happened?

02:59And do you think that there was no involvement from the West?

03:01Maybe you are at this position.

03:05It's not clear from what you're saying.

03:08I think you're rewriting history again and again and again.

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