Putin is ready to negotiate with Ukraine on the basis of the «Istanbul agreements» of Arakhamiia-Medynskyi

Russian President Vladimir Putin once again spoke about negotiations with Ukraine and said that Russia has never given up on them. He stated that Russia is ready to negotiate on the basis of the «Istanbul agreements».

The head of the aggressor country made such a statement during his trip to China.

«Moscow has never refused peace negotiations, and the basis for this process is: the Istanbul agreements. Russia needs to understand who it is possible to do business with in Ukraine and who it can trust, the situation is being analyzed,» he said.

According to Vladimir Putin, Ukraine itself refused to sign the peace treaty and decided to continue the armed struggle. In particular, the president of the aggressor country blamed the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who visited Kyiv in April 2022, for this. The prime minister at the time said that any peace talks regarding Ukraine would most likely fail, because negotiating with Vladimir Putin is like negotiating with a «crocodile that has already latched onto your leg.»

«What should have been done on our side was to withdraw the troops from Kyiv. We did it. The next day, they (Ukrainian side, — note) threw all our agreements into the trash and said they would fight to the end. The then Prime Minister Johnson came and recommended Ukraine to continue hostilities. Otherwise, as Arakhamiia said, namely he was at the head of the delegation (during the negotiations in Istanbul, — note), all hostilities would have ended a year and a half ago,» Vladimir Putin said.

It should be noted that the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Davyd Arakhamiia, met with the head of the delegation from the Russian Federation, former Minister of Culture and Vladimir Putin's assistant, Volodymyr Medynskyi. It was after the Istanbul round that the representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the partial withdrawal of the Russian military from Kyiv and Chernihiv. Also at that time, the Russian side announced Putin's readiness to meet with him in the event of a peace treaty. However, the agreement was still not signed, accordingly, the meeting of the presidents did not take place.

Later, the head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, Davyd Arakhamiia, who was part of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations with Russia in the spring of 2022, said that the Russians promised to withdraw troops in exchange for Ukraine's refusal to join NATO. However, the Ukrainian side did not agree to this, as it was not sure that the Russian Federation would really withdraw from the territory of Ukraine.

As you know, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not consider the situation at the front to be a stalemate and stated that Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia.