Russia announced Wednesday that it is ready to hold peace talks with Ukraine as the war enters its ninth month.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a press conference in the capital Moscow that “Russia has never refused to hold talks with Ukraine, and it is still ready to hold them.
“We are ready for dialogue (with Ukraine and the US). We have never refused it. We are ready to negotiate, of course, taking into account the realities that are emerging at the moment,” Zakharova added, referring to developments in the combat zones between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Zakharova said Ukraine would be more likely to hold peace talks “if the West stops exporting arms to the country”.
The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy also said: “We are ready to act when Washington realizes the futility of putting pressure on Moscow or continuing to engage in the conflict as one of its parties”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday set out Kiev’s conditions for starting peace talks with Moscow, demanding “restoration of territorial integrity, respect for the United Nations Charter, compensation for all the damage caused by the war, the punishment of any war criminal and the guarantee that it will not happen again”, a stance that was interpreted as a change of heart by the Ukrainian president, who had previously refused to negotiate with Moscow.
Anadolu Agency