Putin said he is ready for negotiations, but did not support a ceasefire along the frontline
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed readiness to resume trilateral negotiations with Ukraine mediated by the US. However, he did not support the proposal to stop the fighting along the current front line and called the disputed territories "historical Russia" land.
Putin said he is ready for negotiations, but did not support a ceasefire along the front line
According to DW, Putin stated this in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a journalist from the Russian state media holding VGTRK, which was published on October 22.
He said that during a meeting with the US President's special envoy, Steven Witkoff, he agreed to resume dialogue with Kyiv through Washington's mediation. According to Putin, the negotiations should focus not on a short-term military pause, but on issues of ensuring the security of Ukraine and Russia following a final peace agreement.
"We are ready to restart these contacts to achieve this goal," the Russian president said.
At the same time, Moscow did not disclose at what level representatives would participate in the negotiations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for his part, expressed his readiness to discuss ending the war in a trilateral meeting with Putin and US President Donald Trump.
The Kremlin had previously rejected such a meeting or proposed conditions that Kyiv did not accept, including Zelenskyy coming to Moscow.
A few hours after the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov said that the proposals brought by the American side did not fully satisfy Moscow.
In the interview, Putin was also asked about Zelenskyy's readiness to stop the fighting along the current front line. Instead of agreeing with this idea, the Russian president responded: "This is not their territory, this is historical Russian territory."
Earlier, media reported that Donald Trump had also supported the idea of stopping the fighting along the current front line in 2025, prior to his meeting with Putin in Anchorage. However, this does not align with the Russian leadership's demand for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the entire Donbas.
Putin also claimed that Russia "does not want to fight," placing the responsibility for the ongoing fighting on Kyiv. He stated that Russians and Ukrainians are "one people" and claimed that this is supposedly confirmed by genetic research. No specific reference to these studies was provided in the interview.
Meanwhile, DW notes that Russian attacks on Ukraine continued even after Putin's meeting with Witkoff.