MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday 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 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.
Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in the city of Vladivostok, Putin 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 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.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Moscow’s main Ukraine aim was to capture the Donbas region and that Russia’s army was “gradually” pushing back Kyiv’s forces from the Kursk region after their surprise incursion.
Russia has throughout 30 months of fighting adapted its aims in Ukraine after failing to take Kyiv in 2022 and Putin’s comments come as Moscow’s forces advance fast westwards in the Donbas this summer.
Putin said Kyiv’s Kursk offensive had failed to stop Moscow in eastern Ukraine.
“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,” Putin said at a forum in Vladivostok.
Russia claimed to have annexed the eastern Donetsk region, as well as three other Ukrainian regions, in September 2022.
Putin said Ukraine going into Kursk made Moscow’s advance in east Ukraine quicker: “The enemy weakened itself on key areas, our army has accelerated its offensive operations.”
Putin, who appeared rattled when Ukraine launched its surprise move into Kursk in early August, said Moscow was beginning to push back Ukrainian forces from the border region, where they have held on to some towns and villages.
“Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and started gradually squeezing (the enemy) out from our territory,” he said.
“It is the holy duty of the Russian army to do everything to throw out the enemy from tis territory and to protect our citizens,” he added.
Putin has recently hardened his rhetoric on Kursk, vowing earlier this week to “deal with” the Ukrainian “bandits” in the region.
