Rattled Putin admits Russia is prepared for peace talks with Kyiv
A rattled Vladimir Putin has admitted that Russia is ready for peace talks with Kyiv as Ukraine continues its blistering offensive in Kursk.
The Russian despot said at the 2024 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok today: ‘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,’ referring to a failed peace deal from talks in the Turkish city early on in the war.
Although the Kremlin says these conditions for peace talks with Ukraine do not currently exist, Putin named China, India and Brazil as potential mediators.
‘If there is a desire of Ukraine to carry on with the negotiations, I can do that,’ the leader added, as Politico reports.
It comes as Kyiv is continuing its incursion into Kursk and claims it has taken control of over 500 square miles of Russian territory near the Ukrainian border.
A rattled Vladimir Putin (pictured) has admitted that Russia is ready for peace talks with Kyiv as Ukraine continues its blistering offensive in Kursk
In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Aug. 18, 2024, Russian soldiers fire a Giatsint-S gun toward Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location near the Russian-Ukrainian border area in the Kursk region
Civilians look at a heavily damage and partially collapsed house after a Russian shelling in the town of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine on September 05, 2024
While Ukraine said it would not directly engage in negotiations with Moscow, it was hoping to build a group of intermediaries to do so.
Putin also repeated his view that an initial agreement reached in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, could serve as a basis for talks.
But the Russian leader has also previously said that the Kursk incursion made any peace talks between his country and Ukraine impossible.
Ukraine’s top commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said that one of the objectives of the Kursk operation was to divert Russian forces from other areas, primarily in eastern Ukraine near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
Though the Kursk incursion was an embarrassment for Putin and the top military brass, Russian officials are now portraying it as one of Kyiv’s biggest tactical mistakes of the war, saying it ties down thousands of troops for little real gain.
‘By transferring rather large and well-trained units to these border areas with us, the enemy weakened itself in key areas, and our troops accelerated offensive operations,’ Putin said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Kyiv plans to hold territory in Kursk and that the operation, which he says is part of a not fully disclosed victory plan, has brought the war home to Russians.
But Putin said on Thursday that Ukraine’s incursion into the Russian region of Kursk had failed to slow Russia’s own advance in eastern Ukraine and had weakened Kyiv’s defences along the frontline in a boost to Moscow.
Putin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, said that Russian forces were now gradually pushing Ukrainian soldiers out of Kursk, where on Aug. 6 Ukraine launched the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two.
Ukrainian emergency service workers extinguish a fire after a Russian bombing in the town of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine on September 4, 2024
This undated handout photograph released on September 1, 2024, on the official Telegram account of the Kursk-neighbouring Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, shows a firefighter extinguishing a car after a recent shelling by a Ukrainian strike in Belgorod
This handout picture taken and released by Ukrainian emergency service on September 5, 2024 shows Ukrainian rescuers working in a military educational facility which was hit by missiles in Poltava, eastern Ukraine on September 3, 2024
Ukraine had weakened its defences elsewhere and allowed Russia to accelerate its push into the eastern Donbas area, he said, reiterating that Moscow’s primary aim was to take full control of the Donbas.
‘The enemy’s goal was to make us nervous and worry and to transfer troops from one sector to another and to stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbas,’ Putin said. ‘Did it work? No.’
Putin, who ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he called a special military operation, said it was now ‘the sacred duty of the armed forces’ to expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk and to defend Russian citizens.
He said said Russian forces were taking chunks of territory in eastern Ukraine more swiftly than ever – and that recruitment rates were increasing in Russia.
‘No action is taking place to contain our offensive,’ Putin said. He said Russia’s advance on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk was successful.
Russian forces, which control 18 per cent of Ukraine, have been advancing in eastern Ukraine since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to achieve a major breakthrough.
