MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Ukraine's survival will be under a serious threat, if peace talks fail to begin by the summer, Kirill Budanov, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (included by Russia in the list of extremists and terrorists), has said.
"If there are no substantial negotiations before the summer, then further very dangerous processes threatening the very existence of Ukraine may be triggered," the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper has quoted Budanov as saying, citing its source among participants in a closed-door meeting in the Verkhovna Rada.
The daily's source also said that Budanov dropped this remark "with a cold smile" on his face, which "made everyone look at each other and fall silent."
In early January, US President Donald Trump admitted that the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine might take more than 24 hours, contrary to what he stated during the election campaign. He expressed his wish to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukrainian crisis much earlier than six months after his inauguration. Keith Kellogg, the special envoy for Ukraine in the Trump administration, said that he would like to meet a 100-day deadline.
Putin earlier mentioned conditions for resolving the conflict, which included the withdrawal of Ukrainian armed forces from Donbass and Novorossiya, Kiev's pledge not to join NATO, the lifting of all Western sanctions on Moscow and Ukraine's non-aligned and nuclear-free status.