Putin says Poroshenko offered eastern Ukraine territories to Russia
At a meeting with entrepreneurs, Russian President Vladimir Putin told them that during the Minsk peace talks, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko offered Putin to take Ukraine’s eastern separatist territories, an area known as “Donbass.” Sources close to the meeting have related this information to Forbes.
According to the sources, Putin said that Poroshenko directly told him, “Take Donbass.” Putin allegedly answered “Are you nuts or something? I don’t need Donbass. If you don’t need it either, then proclaim its independence.” Poroshenko apparently said that he could not do this. Another source speaking to Forbes said that Putin claimed that Poroshenko proposed for Russia to take over the financing of Donbass, while Putin answered that this is possible only if Donbass becomes part of Russia.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to media reports of the conversation. Official Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative Evgeny Perebiynis tweeted that “‘get out of Donbass’ does not mean ‘take Donbass’ – it means the opposite.”
Alexander Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, who was present at the meeting with Putin, has said that the media distorted the president’s words. He did not clarify what had been said.
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Pestkov has neither confirmed nor refuted any of this information.
“Poroshenko proposed for Russia to take over the financing of Donbass. And Putin said that this can only be possible if Donbass becomes part of Russia. For now Donbass is part of Ukraine and Ukraine has to pay for it,” said a source speaking to Forbes.
Putin’s meeting with representatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, during which he spoke about his conversation with Poroshenko, took place on March 19.
In February, peace talks on the situation in Ukraine were held in Minsk, Belarus between the heads of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany. The talks lasted over 15 hours and took place behind closed doors.