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RUSSIAN dictator Vladimir Putin has said he his ready for peace talks with Ukraine amid the ongoing war.
The despot has raged an illegal invasion on Ukrainian soil for more than two years and has now said he is “ready to negotiate” just weeks after Ukrainian soldiers burst into Russia.
EPA
Ukrainian troops on the frontline
Putin insisted it would last weeks – but Kyiv’s troops have held strongPutin said the Kremlin is willing to revisit a failed deal from mediated talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul early on in the war.
Speaking at the 2024 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok today, he said: “Are we ready to negotiate with them?
“We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialled in Istanbul.”
A preliminary agreement between Russia and Ukraine was reached in the Turkish city not long after the war began – but was never implemented.
The terms of the deal were never made public.
Ageing Putin, 71, said China, India and Brazil could act as mediators in potential new peace talks.
It comes mere weeks after Ukraine launched a surprise attack on August 6 from the Sumy province – near the border with Russia.
They now claim to control over 500 square miles of Putin’s territory in Russia’s worst defeat on home soil since the end of World War Two.
Moscow has previously said the incursion renders any peace talks between the countries impossible, marking a U-turn in Mad Vlad’s policy.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky said the blitz was part of a master plan to help end the war.
It served a humiliating blow to Putin’s efforts – as the so-called “special operation” he said would last just weeks in early 2022 is now approaching the three-year mark.
Footage has revealed the true extent of Ukraine’s success in Kursk with hordes of Russian soldiers surrendering and being taken as prisoners of war.
A raging Putin has hit back in cruel attacks on Ukraine soil as he licks his wounds from the crushing defeat.
Just days ago two Russian ballistic missiles were launched at a military academy and hospital inside Ukraine.
Some 271 people were injured in what has been described as one of the deadliest attacks since the start of the war.
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin holds a crunch meeting with his Security Council in Moscow over the Kursk invasion by Ukraine
Ukrainian forces drive a battle tank into Kursk
Ukrainian troops pose for a photo in Sudzha, Russia, after capturing the strategic cityThe Sun's Jerome Starkey inside Russia
BY Jerome Starkey, Defence Editor in Russia
The Sun stepped into sovereign Russia – despite Kremlin threats to kill or convict us – to speak to ordinary Russians left stranded by their soldiers’ humiliating retreat.
Bomb blasts echoed over ruined buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi cab dispatcher, said: “I didn’t think about the war at all. I was just working constantly.
“Home, job, home. I didn’t think about anything beyond my personal life.”
All that changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighbouring Sumy province and captured 1,300 square kilometres in Russia’s worst defeat on home soil since the end of World War Two.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky claimed the blitz was part of a master plan to help end the war.
Bomb blasts echoed over ruined buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi cab dispatcher, said: “I didn’t think about the war at all. I was just working constantly.
“Home, job, home. I didn’t think about anything beyond my personal life.”
All that changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighbouring Sumy province and captured 1,300 square kilometres in Russia’s worst defeat on home soil since the end of World War Two.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky claimed the blitz was part of a master plan to help end the war.
And he stressed that ordinary Russians must “feel” the effects of the war unleashed by tyrant Putin.
Olga said her mother and brother fled their hometown of Sudzha, the largest Russian town now under Ukrainian control.
But Olga was cut off by fighting and unable to cross town to reach them before they escaped.
We met her in a temporary shelter where Ukrainian troops were providing food and beds for civilians left behind.
She added: “I stayed because I couldn’t leave. There was no evacuation.”
A statue of Lenin in Sudzha’s main square had been severely maimed – only part of his trunk appeared to remain on the pedestal.
Behind it, the town hall’s grand facade lay shattered by artillery holes.
A blue and yellow Ukrainian flag fluttered from a makeshift flagpole.
Graffiti on the cobbles mocked Russia’s defenders for fleeing.
It said: “Russians, learn how to fight. Your conscripts are rotting in forests.”
The Russian soldiers defending Sudzha were a mixture of border guards, conscripts and Chechens from the Akhmat battalion.
One of the Sudzha’s residents cursed them for fleeing so quickly
They said: “Our defence was so bad. There weren’t any soldiers. That’s why we are here.”
Around 600 civilians still live in Sudzha from a pre-war population of 5,000, Ukrainian soldiers estimated.
They said it was hard to tell precisely as many were sheltering underground.
While we were there a man came in who had spent the last three weeks in a cellar.
The troops said it was the first time they had seen him.
Pensioner Valentina, 76, another resident in the shelter, said she had tried to forget the war since she moved to Sudzha five years ago – from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
She left to escape the fighting that was unleashed in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists broke away from Kyiv’s control.
Speaking from her dormitory bed, she said: “I never thought this war would be so big that it would come to such a little place like this.
“What is there to fight for here?”
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin said Ukraine wanted Russian territory to use as a bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
Kyiv claimed the land was a buffer zone to limit Russian attacks.
Zelensky has also stressed the importance of capturing 600 prisoners of war to swap for captured Ukrainians.
The assault has boosted morale in Ukraine and changed the narrative of the conflict after months of grinding losses in eastern Donbas.
It has also turned the tables on Moscow and shattered the slowly calcifying myth of Russia’s inevitable victory.
She left to escape the fighting that was unleashed in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists broke away from Kyiv’s control.
Speaking from her dormitory bed, she said: “I never thought this war would be so big that it would come to such a little place like this.
“What is there to fight for here?”
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin said Ukraine wanted Russian territory to use as a bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
Kyiv claimed the land was a buffer zone to limit Russian attacks.
Zelensky has also stressed the importance of capturing 600 prisoners of war to swap for captured Ukrainians.
The assault has boosted morale in Ukraine and changed the narrative of the conflict after months of grinding losses in eastern Donbas.
It has also turned the tables on Moscow and shattered the slowly calcifying myth of Russia’s inevitable victory.
English (US)