Russia reportedly insists on full control of 4 oblasts of Ukraine at talks in Saudi Arabia
Russia, in negotiations with the United States in Saudi Arabia, demands full control over the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts of Ukraine, despite the fact that it has not been able to occupy part of these lands, The Moscow Times writes, citing its own sources familiar with the matter.
Moscow demands control over these lands, since they are already recognized as supposedly "constitutional territories" of the Russian Federation.
"The Constitution does not have a mechanism for regions to secede from Russia. We need the entire Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts," one of the officials close to the Kremlin told the publication.
Another source said that the Russian leadership hopes that Washington will pressure Kyiv to completely withdraw troops from the four oblasts, as the Russian Federation demands.
According to him, Russia may try to seize part of another Ukrainian oblast, for example, Dnipropetrovsk or Sumy, and then offer an exchange for Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Earlier, the US President's special envoy for Russia and the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, called the biggest problem in the settlement of the Russo-Ukrainian war the issue of Crimea and "four oblasts" , the names of which he did not disclose.
According to him, the majority of the population of these regions was supposedly Russian-speaking and wanted to join the Russian Federation. However, the problem is that the “elephant in the room,” as he called the Ukrainian Constitution, does not allow the recognition of the occupied territories as Russian.
Negotiations in Saudi Arabia
On March 24, the United States and the Russian Federation held talks in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
A joint statement by Russia and the United States following the closed-door talks will be released today, March 25. At the same time, a source for RIA Novosti said that the mood of the Russian delegation after this conversation is "good."
Earlier, the media reported that the Russian negotiating team includes the head of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, Grigory Karasin, and advisor to the FSB director, Sergei Beseda. The Untied States, on the other hand, was represented by Andrew Peek, a senior director of the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official.