MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/. Russia’s peace initiative can stop the Ukraine conflict and put its settlement on a diplomatic track, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his greetings to participants in the 10th Primakov Readings forum on Tuesday.

The Russian president’s message was read out by Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov.

The head of state said he was confident that the forum would pay due attention to Russia’s "proposal on settling the Ukraine crisis peacefully."

"I expect that as distinct from many Western politicians who did not even wish to look into the essence of our initiative, the forum’s participants will examine it thoughtfully and rationally and will be able to see that it really stipulates a possibility to stop the conflict and switch over to its political and diplomatic settlement," Putin stressed.

The Russian leader said at a meeting with the Foreign Ministry’s senior staff on June 14 that Russia was ready for settling the Ukraine crisis, which implied recognizing the status of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions as Russian territories, stipulating Ukraine’s non-aligned and nuclear-free status, its demilitarization and denazification and lifting anti-Russia sanctions.

The Primakov Readings forum was held for the first time in 2015. The forum has acquired the status of a prestigious venue for discussing scenarios of international relations, challenges in the sphere of international security and new models of interaction among actors of world politics. TASS acts as a general information partner of the Primakov Readings forum.