RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Erdogan accuses West of ‘provocations’ over Ukraine
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has praised Türkiye’s role in securing a grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, claiming in a speech on Sunday that unlike Ankara, Western nations did not make any tangible diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
“Unfortunately, the West has only made provocations and failed to make efforts to be a mediator in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Erdogan said at a youth event in Türkiye's eastern Erzurum province on Sunday.
Türkiye has thus “assumed this mediator role in 2022” and is set to continue its diplomatic efforts next year, building up on the success of the Black Sea corridor created as part of an Istanbul grain deal in July, Erdogan said.
The grain corridor was touted as a way to secure food supplies to the neediest nations as a matter of priority, but Erdogan confirmed Russia’s long-standing concerns, saying on Sunday that some 44 percent of the grain exported from Ukraine went to Europe instead. In the meantime Moscow voiced its readiness to supply African nations with “large volumes” of grain and fertilizers out of its own stocks for free.
Ankara adopted a neutral position early in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, refusing to take part in the Western sanctions on Moscow, while continuing its military cooperation with Kiev – including selling a number of Bayraktar attack drones. A preliminary peace agreement was reportedly reached in Istanbul as early as March, but was later rejected by Ukraine under alleged pressure from the West.
The grain deal, touted as a rare victory for diplomacy, was signed in July by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Türkiye and the UN, with a Joint Coordination Center set up in Istanbul to oversee the shipments. In late October, Russia briefly suspended its participation in the agreement, after accusing Kiev of launching a terrorist attack on the Crimea bridge, and drone strikes on ships involved in securing safe passage for agricultural cargo. Moscow ultimately returned to the accord after receiving unspecified “written security guarantees” from Kiev.
Last month, Moscow allowed “a technical prolongation” of the deal, but Russian officials have repeatedly voiced concerns that the deal is not meeting its stated goals, and have also insisted that the provisions on lifting the restrictions on Russian agricultural exports were not being fulfilled. The Turkish president expressed hope that the issue of fertilizer exports and Moscow's other concerns would be resolved through “more intense” negotiations next year.
Anti-Russian sanctions are signal to other countries not to deal with West, says Medvedev
Western countries, by their actions, are undermining confidence to themselves and their legal institutions in the world and the anti-Russian sanctions are a vivid example of that, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote in an article summing up the results of the outgoing year that was published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
He recalled that Western politicians are seeking to seize Russian assets "without charge or trial," or "simply to steal them." The sanctions, in his words, are imposed on Russia and its allies "with the stroke of the pen" by Washington and its "European minions."
"It is the last signal to other stets: it is impossible to deal with the Anglo-Saxon world. Like it is impossible to deal with thieves, fraudsters, cardsharps," he emphasized.
"A general credibility crisis to the so-called developed countries and their legal institutions is evident," Medvedev noted. "It turns out that fundamental principles of legal relations, such as inviolability of private property and the supremacy of international law can easily be disposed of for the sake of political interests."
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired on Sunday.
Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most deadly European conflict since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
There is, thus far, little end in sight to the war.
The Kremlin says it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from all of its territory.
"We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them - we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are," Putin told Rossiya 1 state television.
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge it was Russia which did not want talks.
"Russia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens," the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted. "Russia doesn't want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility."
'NO OTHER CHOICE'
Russian attacks on power stations have left millions without electricity, and Zelenskiy said Moscow would aim to make the last few days of 2022 dark and difficult.
"Russia has lost everything it could this year. ... I know darkness will not prevent us from leading the occupiers to new defeats. But we have to be ready for any scenario," he said in an evening video address.
The Ukrainian armed forces' general staff said there was still a threat of air and missile strikes on critical infrastructure across the country.
Russian troops had shelled dozens of towns and positions along the front line, it said in a Facebook post.
Zelenskiy, referring to a strike on the southern city of Kherson on Saturday that officials say killed at least 10 people, vowed, "We will find every Russian murderer".
Putin accused the West of trying to cleave Russia apart.
"I believe that we are acting in the right direction, we are defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people. And we have no other choice but to protect our citizens," Putin said.
Asked if the geopolitical conflict with the West was approaching a dangerous level, Putin said: "I don't think it's so dangerous."
Putin said the West had begun the conflict in 2014 by toppling a pro-Russian Ukrainian president in the Maidan Revolution protests.
Soon after, Russia annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatist forces began fighting in eastern Ukraine.
"Actually, the fundamental thing here is the policy of our geopolitical opponents which is aimed at pulling apart Russia, historical Russia," Putin said.
Putin casts the conflict in Ukraine, which he calls a "special military operation," as a watershed moment when Moscow finally stood up to a Western bloc that he says has been seeking to destroy Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Ukraine and the West say Putin has no justification for what they cast as an imperial-style war of occupation.
Putin described Russia as a "unique country" and said the vast majority of its people were united in wanting to defend it.
"As for the main part - the 99.9% of our citizens, our people who are ready to give everything for the interests of the Motherland – there is nothing unusual for me here," Putin said.
"This just once again convinces me that Russia is a unique country and that we have an exceptional people. This has been confirmed throughout the history of Russia's existence."
** Air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv and across all Ukrainian regions on Sunday morning but no new Russian attacks were reported, officials said. The all-clear was later given.
Unconfirmed Ukrainian social media reports suggested the sirens may have been triggered after Russian jets took to the skies in Belarus and that the all-clear was sounded after the planes returned to their bases.
Reuters was unable to verify those reports.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's air forces, told national television earlier on Sunday that Russian military jets were flying virtually around the clock.
"But we have increased readiness - everything that takes off must be under our control," Ihnat said.
Russia has carried out a series of missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure since mid-October, knocking out power and causing emergency blackouts in many areas.
On Saturday a Russian strike on the southern city of Kherson, recently liberated by Ukrainian forces, killed at least 10 people, wounded 58 and left bloodied corpses on the road, authorities said, in what Kyiv condemned as wanton killing for pleasure. Moscow accused Ukraine of launching the attack.
RT/TASS/Reuters
