Vladimir Putin has said he will negotiate with Ukraine if Ukrainian forces withdraw from the four regions they claim and after Kiev renounces its NATO membership, AFP reports.
He dismissed a peace summit organised in Switzerland to which Moscow was not invited.
"As soon as Kiev begins the effective withdrawal of troops (from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions) and notifies that it is abandoning its plans to join NATO, we will immediately, the very minute, give the order for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations," Putin told Russian foreign ministry officials.
These demands constitute a de facto surrender demand by Ukraine, whose goal is to preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Putin announced the annexation of the four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine in September 2022, in addition to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Vladimir Putin specified that Ukraine must hand over all these territories to Russia, even though Moscow only partially occupies them.
He also denigrated the peace summit from which Russia was excluded, scheduled to take place in Switzerland on 15 and 16 June at Ukraine's initiative, seeing it as a "trick to divert everyone's attention" from the real culprits of the conflict, which he said were the West and the authorities in Kiev.
"In this regard, I would like to underline that without Russia's participation and without an honest and responsible dialogue with us it is impossible to reach a peaceful solution in Ukraine and for the security of Europe as a whole", the Russian president insisted. | BGNES
