// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Rosenberg: Uncompromising Putin ups demands for peace with Ukraine
Putin sounded uncompromising and confident at his talks with the US envoys
Russia's President Vladimir Putin says he wishes "eternal peace" for Ukraine.
That is the same Russian president who ordered the full-scale invasion of Russia's neighbour nearly five years ago and who continues to reject the idea of a comprehensive ceasefire.
And what, in Moscow's view, is a prerequisite for peace?
The Kremlin spelt it out after talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner: "A new, long-term architecture of indivisible security and peace."
Translated from Kremlin-speak, it means Moscow wants to change the security set-up of Europe in a way that benefits Russia.
What Russia is pushing for is, potentially, the biggest change to European security arrangements since the end of the Cold War.
The Kremlin has put back on the table its controversial proposal from December 2021 – the "draft treaties" with the US and Nato which would not only have put the brakes on the alliance's eastward enlargement by giving Moscow cast-iron guarantees that, for instance, Ukraine and Georgia would never be allowed to join, but also rolled back Nato military infrastructure from countries of central and eastern Europe which became Nato members following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Western leaders dismissed such demands as an unacceptable Russian ultimatum. Two months later Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The "draft treaties" were put away. Now they are out of the geopolitical filing cabinet, and being quoted again by the Kremlin.