Moscow. ““Are we ready to negotiate (with Ukraine)? We have never refused, but we want to do so not on the basis of who knows what outdated demands, but on the basis of those documents that we had agreed upon and practically signed in Istanbul (in March 2022),” said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, addressing attendees at the Eastern Economic Forum, which opened in Vladivostok.
He continued: “I have said this many times: we had practically agreed with the representatives of the Kiev government on the parameters of a possible political settlement. Even the head of the Ukrainian delegation (David Arakhamia), who is still the coordinator of the ruling party’s faction in the Rada, its parliament, checked every page of these agreements. Of course, there were still some loose ends, but in general the document had his approval.”
But, in Putin’s words, “Mr. (Boris) Johnson came and instructed the Ukrainians to fight to the last Ukrainian, as is happening today, in order to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia.” If they had not listened to their “foreign masters” the war would have ended long ago, he said.
Analysts are wondering to what extent the Kremlin chief’s remarks in Vladivostok represent a change in Russia’s position on possible negotiations: until now, after the Ukrainian army crossed the border on August 6, Putin said that “after that, nothing can be negotiated” with Ukraine, which in turn replaced his previous proposal – immediately rejected by Kiev – to negotiate only if Ukraine agreed to meet a long list of demands, including withdrawing its troops from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, renouncing its membership in the North Atlantic Alliance and disarming its army.
However, Karl Nehammer, Austria’s Federal Chancellor, offered his country as a possible venue for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, writing on his social media account on Thursday. X“We take note of the Russian President’s statement on his readiness to negotiate a political settlement with Ukraine. Any negotiations must take place without preconditions and in person. Austria, as the seat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is ready to support a just and solid peace and to serve as a venue for negotiations.”
Perhaps anticipating the commotion that his announcement in Vladivostok could cause, the Russian president said that, in order for negotiations to take place, Ukraine “has to ask for it.”
Meanwhile, Putin expressed his satisfaction at how the Russian army is “gradually pushing out” Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region, where they have occupied an area of 1,300 square kilometers for more than a month. However, the most important thing for him is that Kiev failed in its goal of distracting our forces by “moving large, well-trained units to the border regions,” which has weakened the enemy in key sectors of the front and our troops have intensified their offensive in Donbas (Donetsk and Lugansk), which “is our number one priority.”
The Russian chief executive said that the Ministry of Defense informs him “several times a day” of the progress in Donetsk and Lugansk, where the enemy “is suffering colossal losses in personnel and weapons.” The military, it should be noted, stated in its war report on Thursday that Ukraine “has already lost 10,100 soldiers and 81 tanks in Kursk,” a figure that many observers questioned.
All indications are that exaggeration is not exclusive to the Russian military command. This Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with NBC News (the news division of the American TV channel), that “Russia moved 60 thousand troops to the Kursk front”, which also surprised many experts, when recently the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrskyi, assured that Russia moved “about 30 thousand soldiers” from other combat fronts.
According to Zelensky, the lack of long-range missiles and shells, as well as Ukrainian intelligence information that Russia “intended to invade Ukraine’s Sumy region, led us to move ahead with the Kursk operation, which was a complete success, by the way.”
As of Thursday, Ukraine has a new government, after the castling, dismissals, mergers and other moves promoted by Zelensky and ratified by its parliamentary majority were concluded. Thus, it is worth noting that Denys Shmyhal repeats as prime minister; Andri Sibiga leaves the Office of the President of which he was deputy head and is the new foreign minister in place of Dmytro Kuleba, who will be relocated to a new position, probably at the head of an embassy; Iryna Vereshchuk ceased to be deputy prime minister to take charge of deputy director of the Office of the President with the same functions of the “reintegration of temporarily occupied territories.”
The other deputy prime minister, Olga Stefanyshina, will also take over the Justice portfolio, Vitaly Koval will take charge of Agriculture, and two deputy heads of the Presidential Office will be moved to the Minister of Culture, Mykola Tochytskyi, and to the minister of reconstruction and development of territories, Oleksy Kuleba.
