Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks on the phone during a conversation with Agatha Bylkova from the Kurgan region, an 8-year-old participant of a Recent Yr’s and Christmas charity event, in Moscow, Russia, January 3, 2023.
Mikhail Klimentyev | Sputnik | Via Reuters
A former Israeli prime minister who served briefly as a mediator in the beginning of Russia’s war with Ukraine says he drew a promise from the Russian president to not kill his Ukrainian counterpart.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett emerged as an unlikely intermediary within the war’s first weeks, becoming one among the few Western leaders to fulfill President Vladimir Putin through the war in a snap trip to Moscow last March.
While Bennett’s mediation efforts appear to have done little to finish the bloodshed that continues until today, his remarks, in an interview posted online late Saturday, make clear the backroom diplomacy and urgent efforts that were underway to attempt to bring the conflict to a speedy conclusion in its early days.
Within the five-hour interview, which touched on quite a few other subjects, Bennett says he asked Putin about whether he intended to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“I asked ‘what’s with this? Are you planning to kill Zelenskyy?’ He said ‘I won’t kill Zelenskyy.’ I then said to him ‘I even have to know that you simply’re giving me your word that you simply won’t kill Zelenskyy.’ He said ‘I’m not going to kill Zelenskyy.'”
Bennett said he then called Zelenskyy to tell him of Putin’s pledge.
“‘Listen, I got here out of a gathering, he is not going to kill you.’ He asks, ‘are you sure?’ I said ‘100% he won’t kill you.'”
Bennett said that in his mediation, Putin dropped his vow to hunt Ukraine’s disarmament and Zelenskyy promised not to hitch NATO.
There was no immediate response from the Kremlin, which has previously denied Ukrainian claims that Russia intended to assassinate Zelenskyy.
Bennett, a largely untested leader who had served as prime minister for just over six months when the war broke out, unexpectedly thrust himself into international diplomacy after he had positioned Israel into an uncomfortable middle ground between Russia and Ukraine. Israel views its good ties with the Kremlin as strategic within the face of threats from Iran however it aligns itself with Western nations and likewise seeks to point out support for Ukraine.
An observant Jew and little known internationally, he flew to Moscow for his meeting with Putin through the Jewish Sabbath, breaking his religious commitments and putting himself on the forefront of world efforts to halt the war.
But his peacemaking efforts didn’t appear to take off and his time in power was short-lived. Bennett’s government, an ideologically diverse union that sent current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu right into a transient political exile, collapsed in the summertime over infighting. Bennett stepped away from politics and is now a personal citizen.
