Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing.
Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages.
Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations.
Photo: Reuters
Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2022, the terms of which were never made public.
“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialled in Istanbul,” Putin said.
The Kremlin has said that Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a deal in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine.
“We managed to reach an agreement, that is the whole point. The signature of the head of the Ukrainian delegation who initialed this document testifies to this, which means that the Ukrainian side was generally satisfied with the agreements reached,” Putin said. “It did not come into force only because they were given a command not to do so, because the elites of the United States, Europe — some European countries — wanted to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia,” Putin added.
However, he added that Moscow’s main Ukraine aim was to capture the Donbas region and that its army was “gradually” pushing back Kyiv’s forces from the Kursk region.
“The aim of the enemy [in Kursk] was to force us to worry, hustle, divert troops and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective,” he said.
Turning to US politics, Putin said that he supports US Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Putin said that US President Joe Biden had “recommended to voters to support Ms Harris, we will also support her.”
“She laughs so contagiously that it shows that everything is fine with her,” he added.
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