BRUSSELS, February 12. /TASS/. Ending the Ukrainian crisis will require sustained discussions on various issues, including the potential lifting of anti-Russian sanctions, Wolfgang Ischinger, a German diplomat and former chairman of the Munich Security Conference, said in an article for Politico.
"The idea that establishing security guarantees for Ukraine and a cease-fire line along the current front line is all that’s needed is the West’s wishful thinking. We need to be preparing for a much longer and extraordinarily complex process that will take many months," the diplomat wrote. "The whole security situation in Europe, the lifting of sanctions, nuclear and conventional arms control, and overall strategic stability - it will all have to be discussed," he stressed.
The expert also expressed doubts about Europe’s capability to deploy a peacekeeping contingent to Ukraine in the future in accordance with its plans. "Estimates of the number of troops required to effectively secure a 1,000-kilometer contact line vary from 50,000 to 200,000 <...> Realistically, could Europe politically or militarily manage this, while the Bundeswehr is struggling to deploy a brigade to Lithuania? Doubts can, therefore, be expressed as to whether Europe would even be capable of credibly securing a cease-fire with a large numbers of troops," the diplomat notes.
On February 4, US President Donald Trump expressed hope that agreements for conflict resolution would be reached in the nearest future. On February 7, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, responding to a TASS question, stated that Russia had not yet received any substantive proposals from America on the matter. According to him, US officials only deliver various statements on the issue daily, refuting them later.
At a meeting with the Foreign Ministry in the summer of 2024, Russian 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’s refusal to join NATO. In addition, Russia wants all Western sanctions against it 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.