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Russian President Vladimir Putin maintained this Thursday that a peace agreement with Ukraine must be based on the reality of the battlefield, where Moscow’s forces control almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.
“We are willing to consider any peace talks based on local realities. “We are not willing to do anything else.”declared at a press conference in the Russian city of Kazan, where the BRICS summit ended this Thursday, a bloc originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and which has since expanded to include more countries.
“The ball is in their court”Putin said, commenting on the possibility of negotiations, although he insisted that kyiv refuses to engage in dialogue with Moscow.
During the BRICS summit, representatives from China, India and Brazil called on the Kremlin leader for an immediate easing of violence in Ukraine and the quick start of peace talks.
“Everyone is focused on ending the conflict as quickly as possible and preferably peacefully”commented the Russian leader.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian diplomacy welcomed the lack of references in the final declaration of the BRICS summit to the “Russian neo-imperialist vision of changing the world order and global security architecture through its aggression against Ukraine.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine highlighted that the paragraph dedicated to Ukraine in the summit declaration is limited to mentioning the national positions of the participating countries and “its commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as to peaceful settlement and diplomacy” to end the conflict initiated by Russia in February 2022.
This Thursday in Kazan, the Russian president thanked all his partners for paying attention to the Ukrainian conflict and “looking for a way to resolve it.”
During the press conference, the Kremlin leader again accused the United States of supporting an alleged coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, which triggered the current escalation of violence between both countries, in reference to the Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine ten years ago. The years that removed kyiv from Moscow’s sphere of influence, and the pro-Moscow uprising in Donbass, in the territory of eastern Ukraine, instigated by the Kremlin.
Regarding the current situation on the combat front, where Russian troops have made important progress in recent weeks, Putin stated that The Russian army “acts firmly in all directions” and advances “in all sectors of the line of contact.”
In particular, the Russian president referred to the situation in the Kursk border region, invaded by Ukrainian forces on August 6.
“[Os militares russos] They are actively working on the Kursk front. Some units of the Ukrainian army, including in the Kursk region, are blocked and surrounded. There are approximately 2,000 soldiers”Putin also said.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow annexed the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the east of the country, and Zaporizhia and Kherson, in the south, although without international recognition nor does it have total control over any of them, as it had already done. . with the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Source: Observadora
