Moscow (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia hoped to continue its talks with Ukraine by implicitly inviting Donald Trump to patience, while stressing that the dynamics of war played in favor of Moscow.
A week of the expiration, on August 8, of an ultimatum launched by Donald Trump to his Russian counterpart for him to progress on the peace path, under penalty of new sanctions, the chief of the Kremlin estimated that the three sessions of Russian-Ukrainian talks that have been held in recent weeks in Istanbul had produced some positive results.
“All disappointments are born out of disproportionate expectations. It is a well-known general rule,” said Vladimir Putin during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexandre Loukachenko at the Valaam monastery, on an island in Lake Ladoga near Saint Petersburg.
“But to approach the question serenely, it is necessary to conduct in -depth discussions. And not in public, but in calm, in the calm of the negotiation process,” added the Russian president.
Since the start of Istanbul’s talks last May, Russia has continued to pound Ukraine and have been carrying out a most intense bombing campaign since the start of its large -scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky reiterated on X on Friday on X his desire to meet Vladimir Putin in person in order to accelerate discussions.
But Moscow repeats that such a summit could only take place to seal agreements previously concluded by the negotiators.
Vladimir Putin camped on his positions posted for months on Friday, demanding a just and sustainable “peace” under Moscow conditions, which would be equivalent to Ukraine to a capitulation.
(Written by Dmitry Antonov, Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the French version, edited by Blandine Hénault)