MOSCOW, May 8 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate with “everyone”, including the Europeans, the Kremlin said on Friday after the Financial Times reported that European Union leaders were preparing for potential talks.
The FT reported on Thursday that the shift by the EU was prompted by European frustration with negotiations to end the Ukraine war that have been led by U.S. President Donald Trump.
European Council President Antonio Costa said he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Putin and that the bloc had the backing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to do so, the FT said.
“Putin is ready to negotiate with everyone. He has repeatedly stated this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the FT report by Reuters.
“We will be ready to move forward with our dialogue as far as the Europeans are ready to do so. However, as Putin has repeatedly stated, we will not initiate such contacts after the position taken by the Europeans.”
Russia says it is for European governments to make the first move, as they were the ones who severed contact with Moscow in 2022 after the start of the war with Ukraine.
“The Russian side was not the initiator of the complete cessation of our relations with the EU,” Peskov said. “This was initiated by Brussels and individual European capitals.”
European leaders have said Russia must be defeated in Ukraine and cast Putin as a war criminal and autocrat who they say could one day attack a NATO member if he is allowed to win the war. Russia dismisses such claims as nonsense.
Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022, casts European powers as warmongers for supporting Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in support, weapons and intelligence.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan)
Comments