Slovak president calls for speedy talks between Russia and Ukraine

Both sides in the Ukrainian conflict need to sit down at the negotiating table as soon as possible and stop hostilities. Slovak President Peter Pellegrini told reporters on Monday, December 16.

"We all feel that it is necessary to bring both sides to the negotiating table as soon as possible and to stop the bloodshed as quickly as possible," TASS quoted him as saying.

Pellegrini noted that the situation should be looked at realistically and realize that peace is unlikely to be established without territorial concessions from Kiev. He added that most European Union (EU) leaders realize that peace is the only solution to the conflict.

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The day before, on December 14, Verkhovna Rada MP Oleksandr Dubinskyy said that Ukraine will never be in a strong position in negotiations with Russia. He also noted that this once again emphasizes the possibility of ending the conflict only after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (his term expired on May 20) leaves office.

Prior to that, on December 9, political scientist Oleksandr Dudchak shared with Izvestia the opinion that Zelensky and the West do not want a full-fledged peace settlement. At the same time, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said that Moscow is always open for negotiations on Ukraine, the Kiev regime and the Western countries that run it are closed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin back in June at a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry named the conditions for negotiations on Ukraine. Thus, the Ukrainian army should leave the territories of the new regions of the Russian Federation and Kiev needs to give up the idea of integration into NATO.

The last round of negotiations took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kiev officially refused contacts with Moscow. On October 4 of the same year, the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on the impossibility of holding talks with Putin was put into effect.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.