MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it absolutely clear that there cannot be any talks with Kiev after its attack on Russia’s borderline Kursk Region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"The president said it very clearly that following attacks, or even incursion, on the Kursk Region, any talks are impossible. The president also said a very important thing and I would like to draw attention to it that we will give an assessment of this situation later," he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel. A fragment of the interview was posted by the program’s host Pavel Zarubin on his Telegram channel.
He refuted allegations about contacts ahead of potential Qatar-and Turkey-mediated talks with Kiev, slamming them as mere rumors. "And as for the rumors that has been spreading in recent time about some clandestine contacts to prepare talks Qatar-brokered talks on issues of Russian and Ukrainian energy facilities or rumors that our Turkish neighbors are planning to try to be mediators in the sphere of food security but in the context of ensuring free navigation in the Black Sea, you should understand the real goal of such schemes. This is done in the wake of the Burgenstock conference, which yielded a decision to set up three working groups - on energy, on food in the context of safe navigation, and on humanitarian issues (prisoner exchanges and so on)," he said.
According to the top Russian diplomat, the entire process within the frames of the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland is unacceptable for Russia because it is about promoting the Zelensky formula as an ultimatum. "These three working groups have been set up. Their meetings are being prepared and whatever might be said about any hints that Russia would be invited there in some way, this is not true," Lavrov said. "Because the Burgenstock process is unacceptable for us as its only goal is to promote the ultimatum under the name of the ‘Zelensky formula.’".