MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. The Italian plan for settling the Ukrainian crisis is based on rumors found in "provincial newspapers" and fake news. Only the draft agreements proposed by Russia reflect the real state of affairs, the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said on Tuesday.
"The West is obsessed with a zeal of making ‘peace plans’ that should ostensibly lead to a settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. There might be nothing wrong with this, if the point at issue were some options taking into account the realities somehow. Alas, it is just a pure stream of consciousness from the European graphomaniacs," Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.
He drew attention to Italian media reports that Rome had handed over to the UN "a certain four-stage plan for a peace settlement in Ukraine."
"One has a feeling that it was put together not by diplomats, but by local political scientists who have been reading provincial newspapers too much and operating only with Ukrainian fake news," Medvedev emphasized.
He criticized a number of ideas contained in the plan, such as the country's entry into the EU and the autonomy of Donbass and Crimea within Ukraine. Medvedev is certain that "there is no point in analyzing this project further," since "it’s just an attempt to help Kiev save face somehow."
"By the way, Ukraine itself does not want to negotiate. It has long preferred to forget about the Russian draft peace treaty. As if it had never existed. It relies entirely on the flow of weapons and money from the Western countries and war to the bitter end," Medvedev said. "How very wrong. After all, in the event of a change in the military operation’s scenario the Ukrainian authorities and military command will not feel safe even in the underground bunkers," Medvedev stressed. He warned that various high-profile "PR visits" to Ukraine by various foreign politicians in that case "will be taking take place not in Kiev, but on the border with Poland".
"Therefore, if somebody really wishes to propose peace, there must be initiatives based on sober calculations and reflecting the current state of affairs. It is precisely this type of document that Russia proposed for discussion a long time ago. As for peace proposals formulated strictly in the interests of NATO and the Western world order, then such gestures should be simply ignored. And the steady work continued for achieving the goals of the special military operation," Medvedev concluded.
Earlier, the daily La Repubblica said that Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio had handed over to the UN and G7 partners a proposal for a peace settlement in Ukraine, involving a ceasefire, as well as a treaty on "disputed territories" and a general multilateral agreement on security guarantees in Europe.