Russian President Vladimir Putin said that China, India and Brazil could act as mediators in potential peace talks over Ukraine on Thursday. According to a Reuters report, Putin said a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, could serve as the basis for talks.
Putin 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.
Putin’s statement comes months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow and recent Visit to Ukraine where he reiterated India’s stance on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and stated that India has always been on the side of peace.
Ukraine launched an unprecedented cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations.
According to an AFP report, Putin was speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in the city of Vladivostok where he said Russia was ready for talks but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul 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 repeatedly claimed 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 initialled 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.
Comments
0 comment