Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that 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 last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages.
Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations.
Photo: Reuters
Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey, 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 said that 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.
However, he added that Moscow’s main Ukraine aim was to capture the Donbas region and that its army was “gradually” pushing back Kyiv’s forces from the Kursk region.
“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,” he said.
Turning to US politics, Putin said that he supports US Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Putin said that US President Joe Biden had “recommended to voters to support Ms Harris, we will also support her.”
“She laughs so contagiously that it shows that everything is fine with her,” he added.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS