Putin's "peace plan" is Ukraine's surrender — Zelenskyy

This was stated by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with Newsmax.

Russia wrote the so-called proposal, and it clearly understands: everything written there does not correspond to the Constitution of Ukraine, nor to the law, nor to international law, nor to the wishes of the Ukrainian people. What Russia is proposing is not a peace plan — it is an ultimatum, written in such a way that Ukraine could never fulfill it.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

President of Ukraine

He emphasized that Russia is an aggressor that attacked Ukraine. And he noted that a compromise is that Kyiv should "sit down at the negotiating table with the murderers and agree on something."

Ukraine showed that it was ready for anything for the sake of peace. But for anything, except surrender. Let's be honest, what is a ceasefire, if not just a ceasefire? Why should there be conditions for a ceasefire? How can we talk about protecting Russian-speaking people if the Russians were killing mainly in the east of the country — where the majority of Russian-speaking people living in Ukraine were.

He also added that it is inappropriate for Russians to raise the issue of the "Russian" church.

Faith is the will of man. Freedom. And (Russian dictator Vladimir, — ed.) Putin climbs right under the very bell and tells who how to be baptized. A person can go to church, or to a mosque, or to a synagogue, etc. This is the will of the people. And he tells how much respect we should have for the Russian church. Why? This is not even a state issue — it is a church issue.

Note that, according to Zelenskyy, the Russian delegation, while still in Istanbul, openly stated that its "memorandum" is an ultimatum to Ukraine.