Putin never refused to meet Zelensky, but ‘a document’ needs to be drafted: Kremlin
New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin has never refused in principle to hold a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, but a document must be drafted before such a meeting can be arranged, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
“There is no detailed novation regarding this issue,” Peskov said speaking at a daily news briefing. “We have already spoken about this meeting saying that in principle the Russian president never refused it, but certain conditions must be arranged before this meeting, namely a text of the document.”
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he believed that only Ankara was capable of helping to reach progress in the ongoing negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
However, Russian President Putin said on Tuesday that “Kyiv drove negotiations with Moscow into a dead end again by deviating from the agreements reached during the Istanbul round.”
The Russian-Ukrainian negotiations kicked off on February 28 with several meetings between the two delegations held in Belarus. Later, the negotiators continued contact by way of videoconferencing. On March 29, a new face-to-face round of talks was held in Istanbul.
On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as of the beginning of 2014.
Russian President Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine in order to protect people “who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.”
The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. The DPR and the LPR launched an operation to liberate their territories under Kyiv’s control.
(Vinayak)
