Putin-Trump Anchorage meeting covered peace plan, not linked to graft probe – Yatsenyuk
The theses of the Russian-American so-called "peace plan" to end the war in Ukraine, published by a number of media outlets on Wednesday, are identical in content to those discussed during the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, and confirm the position of the Russian leadership, which it has been expressing since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, notes Arseniy Yatsenyuk, chairman of the Kyiv Security Forum (KSF), former Prime Minister of Ukraine (2014-16).
"And from my sources in the United States, I can tell you that this is practically what was discussed by Putin and Trump in Anchorage, Alaska. That is, everything that is now being demonstrated as a supposedly new peace plan has nothing to do with peace - it is a plan for the creeping surrender of Ukraine. And all the theses that are in this so-called peace plan are all theses that completely copy Putin’s position, expressed almost four years ago," Yatsenyuk said in an exclusive comment to the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Thursday.
He stressed that this plan "has nothing to do with the real achievement of peace and stability in Ukraine, not to mention the fact that neither the EU nor Ukraine is concerned with this plan." "This is simply a plan that was already actually presented by Putin to Trump in Anchorage and, according to Putin, Trump then agreed to this plan," he said.
Yatsenyuk sees nothing in this plan that the Ukrainian leadership could agree to and declared that it is a "pure platitude" in which "there is no new element at all." "This is all a continuation of the KGB special operation under Putin’s leadership… to further seize Ukraine and in order to, first, avoid additional sanctions from the United States, second, buy time to continue the offensive, third, supposedly demonstrate that Russia is ready for peace negotiations, but in fact this is nothing more than a repetition of all the theses of the war criminal Putin after the start of a full-scale war," he stressed.
At the same time, Yatsenyuk is convinced that the emergence of this plan is in no way connected with the corruption scandal in Ukraine in the energy sector, but this scandal will definitely be used to put pressure on Ukraine.
"As for whether this is related to the corruption scandal - I believe that it is not related at all. Because Dmitriev (Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev - IF-U) went to Washington long before the anti-corruption authorities published information about corruption in Ukraine… Another thing is that this anti-corruption scandal, of course, can be considered as a means of pressure on Ukraine - I have no doubts about this," he said.
Yatsenyuk considers the anti-corruption investigation in the energy sector as an achievement in the fight against corruption, emphasizing that this is the first time in the history of Ukraine that anti-corruption authorities have launched such a large-scale investigation, and Ukraine has never had a reputation for being free from corruption before. "In 2014-16, my government created all anti-corruption bodies, five anti-corruption bodies, and created mechanisms for preventing corruption - starting from electronic declarations and ending with the system of state permits. And the President of Ukraine has now made the right decision to lead this process, and not to oppose this process," he said.
"Another thing is that it is simply disgusting, it is terrible, and those who committed these corruption crimes should be in prison. And it is clear that this is not the end of history," Yatsenyuk added.
