“No Minsk-3”: Stoltenberg rejects further Ukraine land-for-peace deals with Russia

There are no signs that Vladimir Putin is ready to engage in peace negotiations, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He highlighted Russia's pattern of making land-for-peace deals with Ukraine, failing to adhere to them, and then attacking again, making another such agreement unnecessary and potentially harmful.

"Putin shows no readiness for peace talks. We cannot have Minsk-3," said NATO chief Stoltenberg.

Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 (2014-15) were land-for-peace deals involving Germany and France, aimed to halt Russia's first Ukraine incursion, which saw Crimea's annexation and war in Donbas. pic.twitter.com/Cht1V9qXk0

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 5, 2024

“This war didn't start in 2022. It started in 2014, when they illegally first annexed Crimea, then some months later went into eastern Donbas, agreed the ceasefire, Minsk-1, violated that, moved the frontline even further west, agreed Minsk-2, waited for seven years and then launched the full-scale attack and took even more. We cannot have Minsk-3,” he said at the press conference.

The Minsk agreements, brokered by Germany and France in 2014 and 2015, failed to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine. Now, as reports emerge of plans by Donald Trump's advisers to push Ukraine into territorial concessions and NATO exclusion for peace, Putin expresses interest in such proposals.

However, Putin's recent demands for ending the war—including recognition of annexed territories, "de-Nazification" of Ukraine's government, and limits on Ukraine's military—amount to surrender terms that Kyiv firmly rejects.

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