Ukraine warned Thursday against Kremlin attempts to divide the world after US President Donald Trump revealed he plans to begin peace talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“The Russians are trying to prolong the post-Yalta mentality, with a few people sitting around the table and dividing the world,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga told reporters in Paris, referring to the conference in Crimea of the British, Soviet and US leaders at the end of World War II.
“We want no Yalta 2,” Sybiga added.
Trump on Wednesday held separate phone talks with Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump’s move stunned Ukraine and European allies, with many insisting they and Kyiv must have a seat at the negotiating table.
Zelensky said it was “not very pleasant” that Trump had called Putin first before speaking to him, adding the US president had said he wanted to speak to both leaders together.
On Thursday, Sybiga suggested Kyiv had been kept in the dark over Trump’s plans.
“Ukraine was not aware of the phone call between Trump and Putin, until Trump called Zelensky,” he said.
“We need to fasten our diplomatic seatbelts in such geopolitical turbulence,” he added.
Separately, a Ukrainian diplomatic source said: “We are clear that there can be no peace plan” without the participation of Ukraine and Europe.
When Germany was on the verge of defeat in February 1945, the leaders of the “Big Three” Allied powers — Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States — met in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta on February 4–11 to decide the future of post-war Europe.
Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to split defeated Germany into four occupied zones.
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