BUENOS AIRES, December 12. /TASS/. The West sought to take advantage of the conflict in Ukraine to weaken Russia, but its policy of sanctions has failed, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said during an official visit to Brazil.
"The West decided to take advantage of this conflict in order to weaken Russia, and sanctions were imposed. Billions of euros and dollars are being spent on Ukraine, which is receiving a lot of humanitarian aid and an abundance of weapons. What’s the result?" Fico said in an interview with Brazil’s Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. "Russian [troops] are seizing more and more territory, while sanctions aren’t working, and Ukraine can no longer hold talks from a strong position," he added.
Fico also expressed regret that other European Union countries were reluctant to take note of Bratislava’s stance about the need to launch negotiations. "The war in Ukraine is the issue that has turned me into the black sheep of the European family because my views are different from those of other EU nations," the Slovak premier noted.
At a June 14 meeting with the Russian Foreign Ministry’s leadership, President Vladimir Putin set out the country’s conditions for resolving the situation in Ukraine. Among them are the withdrawal of the Ukrainian armed forces from Donbass and Novorossiya and Kiev abandoning plans to join NATO. In addition, Russia wants all Western sanctions lifted and demands that Ukraine commit to a non-aligned and nuclear-free status. The rights, freedoms, and interests of its Russian-speaking population need to be ensured, too.
On December 4, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was open to talks on Ukraine, and in order to launch a peace process, it is enough for Vladimir Zelensky to revoke his decree banning communication with the Russian leadership and hand down instructions to resume dialogue based on the Istanbul agreements, which would take the realities on the ground into account.