NATO Deputy Secretary General: Russia could use peace talks to rearm

"Russia cannot be trusted. Even if sooner or later they start talking about peace, it will not be peace but a ceasefire to rearm and return to the conflict immediately afterwards," NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said, suggesting that NATO member countries need to be cautious with Moscow's stance.

According to RT, the Kremlin has stated that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande confirmed that the Minsk agreements were a cover for preparing for a violent scenario in Donbass. Therefore, in December 2022, Angela Merkel called the Minsk agreements an attempt to "buy time" to give Ukraine more time to prepare its arms and "become stronger". She noted that the Ukrainian army today "is no longer the same as in 2014-2015".

According to President Putin, Russia has done everything possible to peacefully resolve the situation around Donbass but has been "led by the nose".

In another development related to negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine, at a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on April 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's peace plan to end the conflict with Russia is unrealistic and cannot serve as a basis for any future negotiations.

Mr Lavrov described President Zelensky's peace formula as a "completely empty ultimatum" and "far from reality".

Beijing and Moscow agree that any talks on the conflict in Ukraine must take into account Russia's security concerns.