Defense Minister Reznikov talks about negotiations with Russia at the beginning of the war

Defense Minister Reznikov says negotiations with Russians in Belarus were his most difficult decision to make.

Negotiations with the Russian delegation in Belarus were the most difficult decision for Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, as he had to shake hands with the Russian delegates and restrain his emotions.

The head of the Ministry of Defense spoke about this in the film A Year Behind the Scenes by Dmytro Komarov.

When asked what was the most difficult decision for the minister to make, he replied that it was to agree to negotiate with the Russians.

- "I just didn't know how to be successful in negotiations when you hate, and the emotion of hatred was already there for the other side. It's not professional. I just do a lot of negotiations, and I understand what you have to do: come, sit down, shake hands in a protocol way and not growl. If you can't do that, don't go to these talks," he said.

Oleksiy Reznikov says that if a person goes to a negotiation, he has to bring results, so he had to step on his emotions.

- "It was difficult. And all this had to happen on the territory of Belarus, which we did not trust. They could have just taken us hostage there, or arranged some incident on the way, killed us, and that was it. We can't trust them," he added.

The Defense Minister says that the Russians offered to make a corridor for the Ukrainian delegation through the corridor in the occupied territories of northern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian delegation refused. According to the minister, the Russians then replied that they would get there as they saw fit.

- "We communicated with our Polish colleagues, our Polish colleagues supported us, we got to Poland, and then flew to the territory of Belarus by NATO Blackhawk helicopters, and then by a Belarusian helicopter. I think this is the first time that NATO helicopters have landed on Belarusian soil," he said.

Oleksiy Reznikov says that during the negotiations he was once again surprised by the cynicism of the Russians, as they refused to take the bodies of about 3,000 liquidated Russian occupiers, because, according to the Deputy Defense Ministry, Moscow allegedly could not confirm their losses.

Although, according to Reznikov, after talking to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Russia knew about the losses, they were just afraid to report it to the Kremlin.