Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin has requested direct peace talks with Ukraine that will be held in Istanbul on May 15.
He said that conversations should focus on ending the war and dealing with the reasons why he began.
The Russian leader sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, beginning the most serious clash between Russia and the West from the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
He said that Russia was proposing direct conversations with Ukraine in Istanbul in an attempt to “eliminate the fundamental causes of the conflict” and “achieve the restoration of long -term lasting peace.”
Putin blamed Ukraine for moving away from the conversations in 2022, but said that Moscow is now ready to resume discussions without any condition.
‘It was not Russia who interrupted the negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv. However, we are proposing that Kyiv renudes direct negotiations without prior conditions, ” Putin said, referring to failed conversations shortly after the Russian invasion of 2022.
“We offer kyiv authorities to resume negotiations and on Thursday, in Istanbul,” Putin said.
‘Our proposal, as they say, is on the table. The decision now depends on the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, seems, for their personal political ambitions, and not for the interests of their peoples. “
The main European powers threw their weight behind an unconditional Ukraine Ukraine Cessefire on Saturday, with the support of US President Donald Trump, and threatened Putin with new “massive” sanctions if he did not accept in a matter of days.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said that he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the Ukraine War, which his administration presents as an indirect war between the United States and Russia.
The former president of the United States, Joe Biden, the leaders of Western Europe and Ukraine issued the invasion as a hoarding of imperial -style lands and have repeatedly promised to defeat the Russian forces.
Putin launches war as a decisive moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which as he humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by expanding NATO and invades what considers the sphere of influence of Moscow, including Ukraine.
