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TEL AVIV. – Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett revealed to Israeli media that he travelled to Moscow as Israeli prime minister last March to broker an early ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and the two sides agreed to make comprises, but the ceasefire talks were “interrupted” by the West.
Speaking on a podcast with Israeli television Channel 12, which lasted for almost five hours and was published on Sunday, Bennett said that after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict last February, he tried to act as a meditator as he believed that there was still chance to end the conflict by diplomatic means.
According to Bennett, he contacted US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan, offering to act as a conduit between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, and also persuaded German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to join the conversation.
Bennett said that during his mediation, Zelenskyy promised not to join NATO and Putin dropped his main goals of special military operations: seeking “disarmament” and “denazification” of Ukraine, adding in his impression, both Russia and Ukraine want a ceasefire and have drawn about seventeen or eighteen ceasefire drafts, but at some point, the West decided “to crush Putin rather than to negotiate.”
The former Israeli prime minister also said that all of his actions had been agreed in detail with the U.S., Germany, and France. “They interrupted the talks,” he said. – CGTN.com
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