Restarting the prospects of peace talks, amidst major military escalation on the Russia-Ukraine front, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready for talks with Ukraine, asserting that India, China, and Brazil could act as mediators in potential peace dialogues, news agency Reuters reported.
The Russian President said a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, could serve as the basis for talks.
Vladimir Putin’s statement comes weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine in August, which was preceded by his visit to Russia in July.
“We respect our friends and partners, who, I believe, sincerely seek to resolve all issues surrounding this conflict, primarily China, Brazil and India. I constantly keep in touch with our colleagues on this issue,” Putin was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency.
Separately, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Izvestia daily that India could help in establishing a dialogue on Ukraine.
Underlining the existing “highly constructive, even friendly relations” between Modi and Putin, he said the Indian Prime Minister can “lead the line on getting first-hand information from the participants in this conflict,” as he “freely communicates with Putin, with Zelenskyy, and with the Americans.”
“This gives a great opportunity for India to throw its weight in world affairs, to use its influence that would drive the Americans and Ukrainians towards using a greater political will and entering the peaceful settlement track,” Peskov said.
He, however, said there are “no specific plans” on Modi mediating on the issue. “At this time they can hardly exist, as we do not see any preconditions for talks for now,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
PM Modi’s visit to Russia and Ukraine
Modi on August 23 visited Ukraine where he conveyed to President Zelenskyy that both Ukraine and Russia should sit together without wasting time to end the ongoing war and that India was ready to play an “active role” to restore peace in the region.
His nearly nine-hour visit to Ukraine, the first by an Indian prime minister since its independence in 1991, came six weeks after he held summit talks with President Putin that triggered anguish in some Western countries.
In his talks with Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Modi said India was on the side of peace since the beginning of the conflict and he would even like to contribute personally for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Ukraine is almost a month into its unprecedented cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. This is the first time since World War II that the Russian mainland has been invaded by a foreign army. President Putin had said shortly after the Kursk invasion that “there could be no talk of negotiations.”
Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in the city of Vladivostok, Putin said Russia was ready for talks but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul in 2022, the terms of which were never made public.
“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialled in Istanbul,” AFP quoted Putin as saying.
The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a deal in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine.
“We managed to reach an agreement, that is the whole point. The signature of the head of the Ukrainian delegation who initialled this document testifies to this, which means that the Ukrainian side was generally satisfied with the agreements reached,” Putin said.
“It did not come into force only because they were given a command not to do so, because the elites of the United States, Europe — some European countries — wanted to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia,” the Russian president said.
(with agency inputs)
