Russia will stop 'in a moment' if Ukraine meets TERMS - Kremlin

- Recognize breakaway regions, loss of Crimea.
- Military neutrality for Ukraine.

"Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations "in a moment" if 
Kyiv meets [these] conditions"
- Dmitry Peskove, Russian Press Secretary

Ukraine should meet these terms, **=> Assuming Russian acceptance Ukraine join the 
EU, which Russia probably even wants. <=**

Putin is not trying to revive an empire.  He already has the EAEU:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union

Russia has said the war is a tragedy for it, as it has lost already 5,000 men.

See, it's a military & National Security thing for Russia.  And that's all.


PROOF:
Article: Russia will stop 'in a moment' if Ukraine meets TERMS - Kremlin

https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-says-russian-military-action-will-stop-moment-if-ukraine-meets-2022-03-07/

March 7, 20224:59 AM PST
Last Updated 2 months ago

Russia will stop 'in a moment' if Ukraine meets terms - Kremlin
By Catherine Belton

4 minute read

     Summary

    - Kremlin says it insists on neutrality for Ukraine
    - Russia "will [otherwise] finish" demilitarisation of the country
    - Wants Kyiv to recognise breakaway regions, loss of Crimea

LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military 
operations "in a moment" if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman 
said on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change 
its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, 
and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.

It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose 
on Ukraine to halt what it calls its "special military operation", now in its 12th 
day.

Peskov told Reuters in a telephone interview that Ukraine was aware of the 
conditions. "And they were told that all this can be stopped in a moment."

There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.

Russia has attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, pounding cities 
including Kyiv, Kharkiv and the port of Mariupol. The invasion launched on Feb. 
24, has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two, provoked 
outrage across the world, and led to heavy sanctions on Moscow.

But the Kremlin spokesman insisted Russia was not seeking to make any further 
territorial claims on Ukraine and said it was "not true" that it was demanding 
Kyiv be handed over.

"We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. But 
the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their 
military action and then no one will shoot," he said.

On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: "They should make amendments to the 
constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc."

He added: "We have also spoken about how they should recognise that Crimea is 
Russian territory and that they need to recognise that Donetsk and Lugansk are 
independent states. And that’s it. It will stop in a moment."

NEW TALKS

The outlining of Russia's demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine 
prepared to meet on Monday for a third round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s war 
against Ukraine.

It began soon after Putin recognised two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, 
where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian government forces 
since 2014, as independent - an action denounced as illegal by the West.
Smoke rises as a service member of the Ukrainian armed forces stands by the only 
escape route used by locals to evacuate from the town of Irpin, after days of 
heavy shelling, while Russian troops advance towards the capital, in Irpin, near Kyiv
Smoke rises as a service member of the Ukrainian armed forces stands by the only 
escape route used by locals to evacuate from the town of Irpin, after days of 
heavy shelling, while Russian troops advance towards the capital, in Irpin, near 
Kyiv, Ukraine March 7, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

"This is not us seizing Lugansk and Donetsk from Ukraine. Donetsk and Lugansk 
don’t want to be part of Ukraine. But it doesn’t mean they should be destroyed as 
a result," Peskov said.

"For the rest. Ukraine is an independent state that will live as it wants, but 
under conditions of neutrality."

He said all the demands have been formulated and handed over during the first two 
rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which took place last week.

"We hope that all this will go OK and they will react in a suitable way," Peskov said.

Russia had been forced into taking decisive actions to force the demilitarisation 
of Ukraine, he said, rather than just recognising the independence of the 
breakaway regions.

This was in order to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking population in these 
republics, who he said were being threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops.

"We couldn’t just recognise them. What were we going to do with the 100,000 army 
that was standing at the border of Donetsk and Lugansk that could attack at any 
moment. They were being brought U.S. and British weapons all the time," he said.

In the run-up to the Russian invasion, Ukraine repeatedly and emphatically denied 
Moscow's assertions that it was about to mount an offensive to take back the 
separatist regions by force.

Peskov said the situation in Ukraine had posed a much greater threat to Russia’s 
security than it had in 2014, when Russia had also amassed 150,000 troops at its 
border with Ukraine, prompting fears of a Russian invasion, but had limited its 
action to the annexation of Crimea.

"Since then the situation has worsened for us. In 2014, they began supplying 
weapons to Ukraine and preparing the army for NATO, bringing it in line with NATO 
standards," he said.

"In the end what tipped the balance was the lives of these 3 million people in 
Donbass. We understood they would be attacked."

Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from 
NATO, saying it was "only a matter of time" before the alliance placed missiles in 
Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.

"We just understood we could not put up with this any more. We had to act," he said.

Reporting by Catherine Belton, editing by Mark Trevelyan, Gareth Jones and Angus 
MacSwan