Moscow – Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine and accused Kyiv and its Western backers of refusing to engage in talks. President Vladimir Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in the interview aired on Sunday.
"We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them - we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are" Putin said in the interview.
Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kremlin said it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from all of its territory, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.
CIA Director William Burns said in an interview published this month that while most conflicts end in negotiation, the CIA's assessment was that Russia was not yet serious about a real negotiation to end the war.
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge that it was Russia which did not want any negotiations.
"Russia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens," Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter. "Russia doesn’t want negotiations but tries to avoid responsibility."
Putin said the West had begun the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 by toppling a pro-Russian president in the Maidan Revolution protests.
He calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine as a watershed moment when Moscow finally stood up to a Western bloc he says has been seeking to destroy Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Putin described Russia as a "unique country" and said the vast majority of its people were united in wanting to defend it.
"As for the main part - the 99.9% of our citizens, our people who are ready to give everything for the interests of the Motherland – there is nothing unusual for me here," Putin said.
"This just once again convinces me that Russia is a unique country and that we have an exceptional people. This has been confirmed throughout the history of Russia's existence."
-Reuters