No question of talks with Ukraine, says Russia

KABUL (Pajhwok): Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is no question of negotiations with Ukraine after its attack on Kursk Region.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a TV channel: “The president said it very clearly that following attacks on the Kursk Region, any talks are impossible.”

Speaking to Rossiya-1 television channel, Russia’s top diplomat vehemently rejected reports about contacts ahead of potential talks with Ukraine, mediated by Qatar and Turkey.

He denied clandestine contacts to arrange Qatar-brokered talks on issues of Russian and Ukrainian energy facilities and rumours about Ankara’s plan to mediate in the sphere of food security in the context of ensuring free navigation in the Black Sea.

“You should understand the real goal of such schemes. This is done in the wake of the Burgenstock conference, which yielded a decision to set up three working groups - on energy, food in the context of safe navigation and on humanitarian issues (prisoner exchanges and so on),” he said.

The minister spurned the entire process within the framework of the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland as a bid to promote the Zelensky formula as an ultimatum.

Lavrov explained: “These three working groups have been set up. Their meetings are being prepared and whatever might be said about any hints that Russia would be invited there in some way, this is not true.”

The Burgenstock process, whose only objective was to advance the ultimatum in the garb of the Zelensky formula, was unacceptable to Moscow, he maintained.

PAN Monitor/mud