Moscow:
Ahead of a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he was ready to negotiate with Ukraine if Russia fully withdrew its troops from Donbas, Kherson and Zaporozhye, adding, “We will start a ceasefire and negotiations with Kiev once those troop withdrawals are announced.” will and abandon plans to join NATO.”
The Russian president warned that if the West and Ukraine again reject his peace proposal, they themselves will be responsible for future bloodshed. He said that Russia does not want a temporary ceasefire, but permanent peace. Putin said Ukraine should not seek nuclear weapons.
President Putin emphasized that the government of Ukraine must also guarantee the rights and freedoms of the country’s Russian-speaking population. He said that all these agreements should be recognized internationally and Western sanctions against Russia should be lifted.
The Russian president called the proposed Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland on June 15 and 16 an attempt to legitimize the current government in Kyiv. Because Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential term ended last month. He has also canceled the presidential election to be held this year.
Putin said that Moscow is ready in principle to retain sovereignty over the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions if Kiev guarantees the security of the Crimean Peninsula land corridor in the event of a conflict with Ukraine. These areas are now part of Russia. “However, later, residents of these two regions expressed their desire to join Russia in a referendum,” he said.
He said the Ukraine war was not a conflict between two culturally close countries, but the result of “aggressive” and “reckless” Western policies.
President Putin called Western countries’ decision to seize Russian assets “theft” and vowed to punish those who did so. He claimed that the move to transfer Russian assets to Ukraine would destroy the global financial system.
Rejecting Western claims that Russia could attack NATO countries, he said this was “absolute nonsense”. He said that Western countries are trying to promote an arms race. Putin said that the main threat to Europe is not from Russia, but from its dependence on America militarily, politically, technologically and ideologically.
He said his country and NATO have no choice but to co-exist and work together as they are located on the same continent. Despite bad relations, this reality cannot be denied. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also present on this occasion.
(This news is not edited by the NDTV team. It is published directly from the syndicate feed.)