Vladimir Putin says he is ready to negotiate with Ukraine

On a visit to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian president said he was “ready” to reach an agreement with Ukraine to end the invasion that began on February 24.

“Can we come to an agreement?” At a press conference in Bishkek, KyrgyzstanOn the sidelines of a regional summit, the Russian president said on Friday February 24 he was “ready” to find a compromise to end the conflict in Ukraine initiated by Moscow.

“How do we find a deal?” The master of the Kremlin pretended to be surprised. “What guarantees? That is the question,” he added.

“We are open”

Admitting days earlier that the conflict was protracted, Vladimir Putin concedes that “eventually, we will have to agree” to end the conflict.

“I have already said many times that we are ready and open to these arrangements, but this forces us to think about who we are dealing with,” he said.

The Russian president responded to Angela Merkel’s recent comments. The former German chancellor believes the 2014 Minsk agreement between Moscow and Kiev, signed under the auspices of the OSCE, gave Ukraine time to arm itself in the event of an armed conflict with Russia.

“The Minsk agreement of 2014 was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It took advantage of what we see today. The Ukraine of 2014/2015 is not the Ukraine of today (…) as we saw at the beginning of 2015, at which time Putin could have easily crushed him,” he told the newspaper. said. Die Zeit.

Vladimir Putin said he was “disappointed” by the comments. “It obviously raises the issue of trust. And trust is zero and after such statements,” he said.

“Perhaps we should have started all this before (the offensive in Ukraine) but we were really counting on the possibility of finding an agreement within the framework of the Minsk agreements,” he added.