Photo: kremlin
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has declared his readiness to negotiate an end to the war with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but refused to sign a peace agreement with him, citing the Ukrainian leader’s fictitious “illegitimacy”. This was reported by The Moscow Times.
“I am ready to meet with everyone, including Zelensky. Yes, this is not the issue. If the Ukrainian state trusts someone to negotiate, for God’s sake,” Putin said during a meeting with heads of international news agencies at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
At the same time, the Kremlin leader repeated the main theses of Russian propaganda about Zelenskyy’s “illegitimacy”, stressing that he does not consider it possible to sign a peace treaty with him.
“The signature must be on a document from a legitimate authority. Otherwise, the next one will come and throw it all away,” Putin added.
He also repeated the baseless claim that only the Verkhovna Rada has the powers during martial law in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian government as a whole is “illegitimate”. Earlier, Putin said that the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, could sign the peace agreement.
In addition, according to the BBC‘s Russian service, Putin said that Moscow “wants to end the war peacefully as soon as possible” if an agreement is reached. At the same time, he lied again, claiming that Russia “does not strike residential areas”, although the facts of systematic attacks on civilian targets have long been confirmed by international observers.
Putin also said that the Russian side would try to agree on a new meeting with Ukraine after 22 June through Russian representative Vladimir Medinsky.
In addition, Putin said that Russia had allegedly already handed over 6,000 bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine and was ready to hand over another 3,000. He once again repeated the propaganda thesis that “Russia did not start the hostilities in Ukraine” but “is trying to end them”.
