Zelenskyy: After end of war, USA will gradually lift sanctions on Russia
The draft agreement on ending the Russian-Ukrainian war does not provide for the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation by the United States, but America intends to gradually lift them after the end of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
"We do not see the lifting of sanctions in this agreement between Ukraine and America, but we understand that America will gradually lift sanctions after the end of the war. And here the question is how strong the Europeans can be," Zelenskyy said during a meeting with journalists on Tuesday.
The president noted that he did not consider it important that during the signing of the agreement it was written that sanctions were being lifted from the Russian Federation, since it is not clear what will happen next.
"American sanctions are American sanctions. There are also European sanctions. There are sanctions from other countries in the world. This is a multilateral story about sanctions, and it would be quite strange if someone promised something for others. Moreover, we still do not understand how seriously the Russians take this or that document, in general, until the end of the war," Zelenskyy stressed.
He also said that the United States wants to have a certain parity with the Russian Federation if they provide free trade to Ukraine, that is, they are talking about a free trade agreement with Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Zelenskyy said.
"America's position – since this is a quadrilateral document – on free trade, if they provide free trade to Ukraine, they want to have a certain parity with the Russians. That is, they are talking about a free trade agreement with Ukraine and a free trade agreement with Russia," he said.
"But that's what they're saying. We're talking about ourselves – about this possibility of free trade between Ukraine and the United States," Zelenskyy noted, commenting on the tenth point of the peace plan, which provides that after the agreement is concluded, Ukraine will accelerate the process of concluding a free trade agreement with the United States.