Peace negotiations may take up to several weeks: Ukraine negotiator

Kiev: Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the President of Ukraine, said that peace negotiations with Russia may take at least “several weeks,” despite signs that Moscow’s position is becoming more “adequate.”
Podoliak said in an interview that the key questions that are being negotiated include security guarantees, a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops, and “a political settlement of the disputed territories”, Ukrayinska Pravda reported.
“This process may take longer,” Podoliak said, given the number of mutually exclusive positions.
“There are some concessions that we are definitely not going to make. We cannot give up any territories,” he assured, as one of the negotiators.
While a full peace accord could take longer, “what could happen in a few days is a ceasefire” that will enable more humanitarian corridors to open up, according to Podoliak.
The Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine said that “the Russian army is not at war with the Ukrainian army – they are at war only with civilians.”
According to him, the Russian army is using the tactics of “surrounding large cities and attacking them with cruise missiles and air bombs in order to create humanitarian enclaves.”
“They are trying to implement the Syrian or Afghan war scenario in Ukraine,” Podoliak said.
(IANS)