Russia pressures Ukraine to adopt Sweden-like neutral status: What does this mean? | World news
On Wednesday, Ukraine rejected Russia’s proposal to adopt a neutral status as Austria or Sweden when it continued negotiations on a peace agreement with the Moscow delegation.
“Ukraine is now in a state of direct war with Russia. As a result, the model can only be ‘Ukrainian’ and only on legally verified security guarantees,” Ukraine’s chief negotiator Mikhailo Podolyak said in comments published by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.
Instead, Ukraine is pressuring Russia for a legally binding security agreement, signed by international partners, which “would not stand aside in the event of an attack on Ukraine, as they do today”.
This comes a day after the Kremlin said that a neutral Ukraine in line with Sweden or Austria could be a possible compromise to end a three-week attack in the Eastern European countries. “This is an option that is being discussed now and that can be considered a compromise,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
His comments came after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said that neutrality was at the center of the talks.
Ukraine lives in the shadow of Russia and has long expressed its desire to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of Western nations, to protect itself from aggression from any nation. Russia has demanded that Ukraine refrain from doing so and declare itself neutral.
What is neutral status?
Under international law, neutrality refers to an obligation of a state not to interfere in the military conflicts of other states. This includes avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). As a type of non-combatant status, citizens of neutral countries enjoy protection under the laws of war from acts of war to a greater extent than other non-combatants, such as enemy civilians and prisoners of war.
Examples of this are countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Finland and Austria. However, the status of neutrality is interpreted differently by each country. For example, Costa Rica is a neutral country, but it has been demilitarized, while Switzerland has adapted to “armed neutrality” and has banned itself from foreign deployment.
Sweden is officially militarily non-aligned in peacetime and neutral in wartime, having ended its policy of neutrality in 1992 at the end of the Cold War. It is not a member of NATO, but it has been a partner in the Alliance for almost 30 years.
According to experts, adopting a status of neutrality is the easy way forward for Ukraine to end the violence that has been raging for more than 15 days now.
(With agency input)