According to a rather unsettling report from the BBC, Russian dictatorial President Vladimir Putin has now revealed his demands for bringing an end to his devastating war against Ukraine with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a phone call today and, to be frank, it’s worse than we were even expecting.
A leading adviser to President Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin, listened in on the phone call between the two world leaders today and told the BBC about the existence of the call, as well as the details of Vladimir Putin’s unhinged demands, not more than moments after the presidents’ communication ended. Kalin was reportedly quick to note that Ukraine will very likely find some of the dictator’s demands far easier to agree to than others.
First and foremost, Putin is reportedly demanding ironclad assurance that the country of Ukraine will not so much as attempt to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO,) a global military alliance between many of the countries in the West. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy already said earlier this week that he “must admit,” his nation will not be looking to join NATO, a remark that may serve to get him a little closer to peace talks with Russia.
Kalin went on to tell the publication that Putin also demands that Ukraine completes a “disarmament process,” heavily protects the Russian language in Ukraine, and fully commits to and engages in “de-Nazification.” It still remains unclear as to what Putin’s “de-Nazification” demand actually entails, but it has served as the dictator’s main excuse among his people and across the globe for his reasoning behind the invasion and attack, entirely in spite of the fact that Ukraine boasts a democratic government and their President is Jewish.
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The Erdogan advisor went on to reveal that the more troubling demands were with regard to the status of Crimea and the Donbas region. Vladimir Putin ultimately stated that this is a topic he would only discuss with President Zelenskyy in a face-to-face meeting, according to the report.
The list of demands that Putin allegedly made in the phone call, and Kalin then relayed to the BBC, echo those recently outlined by the Kremlin and reported on by Reuters last week. Russia claimed at the time that they would immediately ceasefire and all military operations in Ukraine upon agreement to their terms Kyiv. Part of those demands included ironclad changes to the Ukrainian Constitution to include and highlight neutrality, their full acknowledgment and acceptance that Crimea belongs to Russia, and the acknowledgment of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.
Last week, the Kremlin told Reuters that these demands have been relayed to leadership in Ukraine.
On Wednesday of this week, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy responded with his own demands for potential peace talks with Russia, following announcements from officials in both countries stating that progress was being made.
“My priorities in the negotiations are absolutely clear: the end of the war, security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country,” Zelenskyy said.
As much as we love seeing Putin suffer as he faces down a force he never expected to reckon with, there’s no denying how terrifying a desperate, unstable Russian dictator truly is.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/The Presidential Press and Information Office, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
