Ukraine’s Zelensky says Trump envoy Witkoff ‘spreading Russian narratives’
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US envoy Steve Witkoff (left) meeting Russian leader Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on April 11.
PHOTO: AFP
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KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 17 accused US envoy Steve Witkoff of “spreading Russian narratives” after he suggested a peace deal with Russia hinged on the status of Ukraine’s occupied territories.
Mr Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg
Mr Zelensky told journalists: “I believe that Mr Witkoff has taken on the strategy of the Russian side. I think it is very dangerous, because he is consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, spreading Russian narratives.
“I don’t see him as having a mandate to discuss Ukrainian territories, because our territories belong to our people; not only to us, but to future Ukrainians. So, I don’t understand what he is talking about at all.”
Mr Witkoff told Fox News on April 14 that a peace settlement hinged on “so-called five territories” – the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea, that Russia claims to have annexed.
The Kremlin wants its claims over the regions to be recognised as part of any peace deal, a proposal that Ukraine has baulked at.
Moscow does not fully control any of them except for Crimea, which it seized in 2014. AFP
