Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Olga Stefanishyna on May 27 commented on the likely shift in the diplomatic process after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wrote a letter to the United States. The video was published by the Telegram channel “Novini.LIVE”.
The journalist asked whether this letter could be an impetus for the resumption of peace negotiations and at what stage Ukraine is now in negotiations with the American side and the American-Russian parties.
Stefanishina emphasized that she cannot talk about further developments from the point of view of the diplomatic track, while several probable scenarios are being considered. She added that the existing negotiating teams ensured that the negotiation process was proper and structured. As confirmation, she recalled the agreements on the exchange of prisoners, as well as the “truce” declared twice.
“How it publicly communicated there is another matter there. But in fact, the negotiators were doing this. Today, several options for further work are being discussed here in the United States, I mean. I cannot comment yet, I don’t know what the decision will be. But I can confirm that Ukraine has not been removed from the agenda,” the ambassador assured.
When asked how one can interpret the words of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the negotiations did not produce any results, Stefanishyna stated the following: “I would not evaluate Marco Rubio’s statements here. I would go back a few days and look at the consequences of Russian shelling and a large amount of destruction, destroyed Ukrainian lives. And we see that these negotiations really did not produce results. And today we see that the number of civilian deaths during the winter has increased by 40% according to the relevant official according to the United Nations. Therefore, the results of the negotiation process did not affect the situation in Ukraine, they did not affect the situation on the battlefield, but this does not mean that the diplomatic track has exhausted itself.”
