Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine, Kyiv says Moscow doesn’t want talks

Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine, Kyiv says Moscow doesn’t want talks
Russian resident Vladimir Putin says the West is trying to break up Russia.
Putin accuses Kyiv and the West of refusing to negotiate.
Ukraine says Putin needs to come back to reality.
Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired on Sunday.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most deadly European conflict since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
There is, thus far, little end in sight to the war.

The Kremlin says it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from all of its territory, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.“We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them - we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television.

CIA Director William Burns said this month that while most conflicts end in negotiation, the CIA’s assessment was that Russia was not yet serious about real talks.

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge it was Russia that did not want talks.style war of occupation.

Putin described Russia as a “unique country” and said the vast majority of its people were united in wanting to defend it.

“As for the main part — the 99.9% of our citizens, our people who are ready to give everything for the interests of the Motherland – there is nothing unusual for me here,” Putin said.

“This just once again convinces me that Russia is a unique country and that we have an exceptional people. This has been confirmed throughout the history of Russia’s existence.”