Reznikov told how the Ukrainian delegation got to the negotiations with the Russian Federation in 2022.
During negotiations with the Russian Federation on the territory of Belarus in the spring of 2022, the Ukrainian delegation feared being taken hostage. Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov told journalist Dmytro Komarov about this in an interview published on May 5.
"I didn't know how to be successful in negotiations when you hate. And the emotion of hatred... I already had it in the other direction. It's unprofessional. I've just been doing a lot of negotiations for a long time. I understand that you have to come, sit down, shake hands as a matter of protocol. And don't growl. Because if you can't do that, don't go to these negotiations. If you agreed to be in the negotiating group, you had to bring results. It had to happen on the territory of Belarus, which we didn't trust They could just take us hostage there and say hello. Or some incident on the way, killed, and that's it. Because you can't trust them," he said. .
The minister told how the delegation got to the place of negotiations.
"It can already be revealed. They suggested that they would make a corridor for us so that we could drive through the occupied part to them. We said, we will get there, because we consider it necessary. We communicated with our Polish colleagues, and our Polish colleagues supported us. We reached Poland. , and there we flew to the territory of Belarus with Black Hawk helicopters of the NATO country, landed there, and from there we flew to Belarus with a helicopter. I think that this is the first time that helicopters of a NATO country landed on Belarusian soil," he said.
Reznikov recalled that when they got into the helicopter, they took off with the doors open, and it was very cold.
"I think: "Are we going to fly in this cold? At least they would give blankets." But then, well, they closed it there... They raised those windows, and it didn't blow so much anymore. But it's such trash, I'll tell you, it's serious," he said.
In 2014, Russia launched a war against Ukraine, annexing Crimea and part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In 2022, it launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, invading its territory from various directions.
Initially, according to the SBU, Putin planned to seize Ukraine in a few days. But the blitzkrieg failed. In April, the Russians were pushed out of the northern regions, and in the fall, the defense forces de-occupied part of the Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions. Currently, the most active battles are taking place in the east.
Ukraine and Russia negotiated the end of the war at the level of delegations. Four face-to-face rounds took place in February-March 2022 (the last one was held on March 29 in Turkey). In addition, delegations met in video format.
The negotiation process was stopped because there are no specifics from the Russian side that could be discussed, the Office of the President of Ukraine explained on May 17.