President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the words of the US Special Representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who recognized Russia's pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories, noting that such statements have both negative and positive aspects. Zelenskyy said this during a press conference, reports UNN.
I believe that there are big minuses, and there are pluses in all this, in this topic. I want to explain my opinion. First of all, unfortunately, a lot of information that is spread by certain people and the person (Witkoff - ed.), about which you said, his messages, unfortunately, coincide very strongly with the messages of the official Kremlin. And they have already voiced these messages more than once regarding referendums. The most convincing story is with the referendum. We all know that there were no real legal grounds for holding referendums. Second, no one can legitimize these referendums, because they were held at gunpoint. Third, dead souls and plenty of evidence of who voted there, who, first of all, did not vote. That is, everyone knows that there were no legal referendums and no one in the world recognizes them
The President emphasized that there are also positive aspects in Witkoff's statements.
No one recognizes these territories as Russian. Unfortunately, there are some voices, you see, at a high level in the US, who are spreading this information that these lands were once owned by the Russians. That is, these are again the same narratives of the Russians, the Kremlin. I believe that Mr. Witkoff simply spent a lot of time in dialogue with Putin, but what are the advantages of this? When there is no trust in a person at all, you don't even believe a word. And this is what will happen in relations, I really believe in it, between the US and the Russians. Because they said that they want an end to the war, an unconditional ceasefire, and so on. We all already see that an unconditional ceasefire did not work out, because the Russians do not want to
Zelenskyy expressed hope that the growing distrust of Russian narratives will affect the US attitude towards Russia, which may be important for further international policy.
Addition
Earlier, US President's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff stated that the status of the occupied Ukrainian territories is a central issue in Russia's war against Ukraine.
"These are Russian-speaking regions, referendums were held there, in which the vast majority of people expressed a desire to be under the control of Russia. I think this is a key issue in the conflict," Witkoff said.