A top Kremlin spokesman told reporters on Thursday that Russia would consider ending its unprovoked military assault on Ukraine if the Ukrainian government accepted terms of surrender, which included the removal of all “weapons” from the country.
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin announced a full assault on Ukraine in the early morning hours of Thursday, claiming the government in Kyiv is illegitimate and that a military invasion was necessary to protect ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Putin had recognized Russian proxy paramilitaries in the Donbas areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign “countries” on Monday, during a speech in which he insisted Ukraine “was completely created by Russia” and had no “tradition” of being a country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nation in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
As of Thursday afternoon Eastern time, the Russian invasion had resulted in Russian soldiers occupying Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and attacking the cities of Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, in addition to extensive fighting in the Donbas war zone. Russian proxies have been engaging in war with Ukraine in Donbas since 2014.
Damaged radar arrays and other equipment is seen at Ukrainian military facility outside Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the regime that he served was willing to end its violence against Ukraine if the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky accepted Russia’s “terms of surrender,” according to Russian government propaganda outlet RT.
“According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart, with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status and the promise of no weapons on its territory,” RT reported. “These are terms that, according to Peskov, would enable the achievement of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, and eliminate what Russia currently views as a threat to the security of its state and people.”
Putin has branded the invasion of Ukraine a “denazification,” claiming the current government in Kyiv is a Nazi imposter regime imposed after popular protests resulted in the resignation of Putin ally former President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Zelensky defeated Yanukovych’s successor, Petro Poroshenko, in a free and fair election in 2019 unrelated to the 2014 protests. Zelensky is Jewish and the grandson of World War II veterans who fought against Nazi Germany – a fact he emphasized in a speech to the Russian people on Wednesday.
“According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart, with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status and the promise of no weapons on its territory,” RT’s report continued.
Peskov reportedly demanded of Ukraine “neutral status and … a refusal to deploy weapons.”
RT did not specify what Peskov meant by “no weapons on its territory,” a broad statement that could mean anything from not allowing foreign nuclear powers to station their weapons in the country to the elimination of every firearm in Ukraine and the end of the existence of its military. In terms of handheld weapons, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law this week greatly expanding the gun rights of civilians; Zelensky escalated this from allowing civilians to more easily obtain guns to openly offering anyone available government weapons on Thursday morning to fight the Russians.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has been reporting alleged successes in stopping a Russian advance to Kyiv, including claiming to have captured Russian “occupiers” on Ukrainian territory. The Russian government has not verified the identity of the men in the photo or their relationship to the Russian military. Later on Thursday, the Ukrainian armed forces claimed that they had forced “a whole reconnaissance platoon” to surrender.
The Ukrainian government conceded, however, that it had lost control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the surrounding area, known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed all claims out of the Ukrainian armed forces as false, and specifically denied reports of losses of Russian aircraft and armored vehicles. The Russian news agency Tass confirmed the Russian military lost at least one aircraft, a Su-25 striker, but claimed it was lost “due to a piloting mistake,” not a Ukrainian offensive.
The Russian government claimed it had “eliminated” over 70 Ukrainian infrastructure facilities by Thursday evening local time.
“As a result of the strikes conducted by Russia’s Armed Forces, 74 ground facilities of Ukraine’s military infrastructure were knocked out of action,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed. “Among them are 11 airfields belonging to the Air Force, three command points, a Ukrainian Navy base and 18 radar stations of S-300 and Buk-M1 missile systems.”