Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday some progress had been made in Moscow talks with Ukraine, while Kremlin said the conflict would end when the West took action to overcome Moscow’s problem.
At the Kremlin meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said Western sanctions would not hinder the development of Russia and that Russia would end stronger.
He then said Ukrainian negotiations took place practically every day.
“There is a certain positive shift, negotiators on our side told me,” Putin said. “I’ll talk about all this later.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba Ukraine met in Turkey on Thursday in the highest talks since the conflict began. There is no breakthrough made.
Russian invasion to Ukraine has killed thousands of people, moving more than 2 million people, and raises concerns about the broader confrontation between Russia and the United States.
The US intelligence agent said Russia was surprised by the power of Ukrainian resistance and by the severity of economic sanctions imposed by the West.
Russia has so far shown a sign that it changes direction.
Lukashenko told Putin that they both came from the Soviet generation who had experienced sanctions and that the Soviet Union had developed well.
“You’re right,” Putin said. The Soviet Union lived all the time with sanctions but developed and made colossal achievements. “
The Kremlin said on Friday the conflict in Ukraine would end when the West took action over repeatedly Russia raises concerns about the killing of civilians in East Ukraine and NATO enlargement to the east.
“We need to find a resolution for these two questions. Russia formulates concrete demands to Ukraine to resolve those questions,” Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Asked by reporters how the crisis can end, Peskov sets the position of Russia and said he believed that Ukraine was discussing Moscow’s demands with US countries and the European Union.
“Let’s hope. It needs to be done. Then it will end.”
Russian officials did not use the word “invasion” and said Western media had failed to report what they did as “genocide” Russian-speaking people in East Ukraine. West has repeatedly rejected such concerns.
Putin said the “special military operation” in Ukraine was very important to ensure Russian security after the United States enlarged NATO membership to the Russian border and supported pro-west leaders in Kyiv.