« S“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused,” Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, September 5, at an economic forum in Vladivostok. “If a desire to negotiate emerges (in Ukraine), we will not refuse,” explained the Kremlin leader, assuring that he was open to talks with kyiv on the basis of those held a few months after the start of the Russian offensive on February 24, 2022.
Vladimir Putin refers to documents “that were agreed upon and that were de facto initialed in Istanbul.” These texts have never been made public, while the Ukrainian side has always denied any agreement. Moscow claims that a compromise was initialed, but that the West pushed kyiv to reject the agreement. Ukraine denies this version of events.
A change of position while Moscow still considered incompatible a few days ago such peace negotiations during the Ukrainian offensive against the Kursk region, launched in August and still ongoing. In June, Vladimir Putin had said that he would only end the conflict if Ukraine gave up its ambition to join NATO and gave it the four Ukrainian regions that it claims, in addition to the annexed Crimean peninsula. Conditions that are nothing less than a capitulation for kyiv.
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