Russia‘s Vladimir Putin accused European powers of trying to thwart potential peace talks with Ukraine by putting forward proposals they knew would be “absolutely unacceptable” to Moscow.
“They don’t have a peace agenda, they’re on the side of war,” he alleged.
Putin said that Russia did not want a war with European powers, but that it was ready to fight if Europe did want a direct conflict.
The Russian president argued that European powers had locked themselves out of potential peace talks by cutting off contacts with his administration.
European powers meanwhile accuse Putin’s Russia of roughly the same thing: floating conditions for a supposed peace that it knew to be unacceptable to Ukraine and its neighbors via the Trump administration so it could then complain at the revisions that followed.
Putin was speaking ahead of a visit to Moscow by real estate developer Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss the latest peace proposals.
This follows talks between Ukrainian and US officials over the weekend.
