Russian President Vladimir Putin has ruled out negotiations with Kiev after the Ukrainian attack on Russian soil, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today.
“The president made it clear that after the attacks, even an invasion (by ground forces), in the Kursk region, any talks are impossible,” Lavrov told Russian state television on the sidelines of Putin’s visit to Azerbaijan.
Putin’s assessment of the situation soon
The head of Russian diplomacy also said that Putin will soon present an assessment of the situation. Reports of alleged contacts between the warring sides, mediated by Qatar or Turkey, were nothing more than rumours, Lavrov added.
Two and a half years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Kiev recently launched a surprise counterattack. Ukrainian forces crossed the border and seized territory in Russia’s Kursk region.
Russian troops, for their part, still hold large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Until recently, Putin had demanded that Kiev abandon its ambitions for Ukraine to join NATO and withdraw its forces from the four Ukrainian regions (Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia) that Russia has illegally annexed as prerequisites for conducting peace negotiations.
Source: RES-MPE
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