ASTANA, July 4. /TASS/. Moscow is ready for talks on resolving the Ukraine conflict, while Kiev rejected any peace process on Western instructions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the SCO+ meeting in Astana.
"Russia, as you know, has never rejected peace talks and is ready to continue them now," Putin said. "It was Ukraine that rejected negotiations, and it did so publicly and on direct instructions from London and <…> Washington," he added, citing rhetoric from Ukrainian officials.
Russia and Ukraine met in Belarus in early March 2022 for their first talks after the launch of the special military operation, but the negotiations yielded no tangible results. On March 29, 2022, the next round took place in Istanbul, when Moscow for the first time received from Kiev the framework for a possible future agreement in writing. It included, in particular, obligations on the neutral, non-aligned status of Ukraine and its refusal to deploy foreign weapons, including nuclear weapons, on its territory.
However, the negotiating process was interrupted by Ukraine unilaterally. Ukraine’s top negotiator David Arakhamia admitted later that Kiev’s decision to reject Moscow’s proposal and continue fighting had been made at the insistence of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who even visited Kiev for that purpose.
The Ukrainian authorities officially banned Kiev from engaging with Putin’s Russia. So far, Zelensky has rejected all ceasefire initiatives, including the proposal brought by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier this week.