Putin says ready to negotiate with Ukraine on Istanbul deal

MOSCOW

Russia is ready for negotiations with Ukraine based on the Alaska and Istanbul agreements, President Vladimir Putin said on June 23.

“Russia is ready for peace talks with Ukraine — based on the agreements reached in Istanbul,” he said. “Based on the agreements reached in Istanbul, on the modalities discussed in Anchorage and, most importantly, on the realities on the ground,” Putin said at a meeting with government officials.

He said Ukraine is trying to create favorable conditions for itself ahead of a possible resumption of stalled peace negotiations by carrying out attacks inside Russia.

Russia and Ukraine conducted three rounds of renewed peace talks last year in Istanbul — on May 16, June 2 and July 23 — which produced major prisoner swaps and draft memorandums outlining positions of both sides for a potential peace deal.

Putin and U.S. President Donald trump then met in Anchorage, a city in U.S. state of Alaska, which led to a 28-point peace plan, later revised to 20 points. Ukraine, however, is said to have rejected any territorial concessions.

Under U.S. mediation, Moscow and Kiev also held three rounds of peace talks earlier this year on Jan 23-24, Feb 4-5 and Feb 17-18. The first two were in Abu Dhabi, while the third took place in Geneva. But the process halted after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

In spring 2022, a draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine was initialed in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will skip a key post-war recovery conference in Poland set for today, Kiev said on June 23, amid a spiralling diplomatic spat between the allies over World War II memory.

Zelensky infuriated Warsaw last month by naming a military unit after the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a group that took part in massacres against Poles during World War II.

Poland’s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki responded by stripping Zelensky of Warsaw’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, prompting several top Ukrainian officials to hand back their Polish awards.

The row threatens to overshadow the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which is scheduled to begin in Gdansk today.