"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," news agency AFP quoted Vladimir Putin as saying.
From the BRICS .... BIC gets a role.... that's Brazil, India and China !!
This is Russian President Vladimir Putin's diplomatic googly !!
He said he was ready for talks with Ukraine and also asserted that India, China, and Brazil could act as mediators in potential peace dialogues.
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.
He 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.
Notably, Vladimir Putin's statement comes months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow followed by his recent Ukraine visit.
Modi's visit to Ukraine was also the first by any Indian PM in decades.
Putin 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.
Moscow 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,” the Russian president said.
Now a very curious Putin-Kamala Harris angle twist in the tale
Russia says it wants Kamala Harris to win the US presidential election.
US intelligence agencies believe Russia wants Donald Trump to win because he is 'less committed' to supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.
But Putin said Trump, as the US president, had introduced more sanctions against Russia than anyone in the White House before him.
Putin was speaking a day after the US Justice Department charged two Russian media executives over an alleged illegal scheme to influence the November election with pro-Russian propaganda.
The Kremlin leader had said earlier this year, before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race — also with apparent irony — that he preferred him over Trump because Biden was a more predictable “old school” politician.
Asked how he viewed the election now, Putin told an economic forum in Russia’s far east that it was the choice of the American people.
But he then added that as Biden had recommended his supporters to back Harris, “we will do the same, we will support her.”
“She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her,” Putin said, adding that maybe this meant she would refrain from further sanctions against Russia.
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