Putin Sets a Condition for Peace with Ukraine and Seeks to Reassure Europe

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday set a condition for achieving peace with Ukraine, more than three years into the ongoing war between the two sides.

Speaking in China during a meeting with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Putin stated that any settlement of the conflict in Ukraine “must not undermine Moscow’s security.”

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“Of course, it is up to Ukraine to decide how it ensures its own security,” the Russian leader said, adding: “But this security should not come at the expense of other countries’ security, particularly that of the Russian Federation.”

He stressed that Moscow had never opposed Ukraine’s potential accession to the European Union, but that joining NATO remained unacceptable to Russia.

Putin dismissed speculation that Moscow was planning to attack Europe. “Western countries and NATO are seeking to seize the entire territory of the former Soviet states, while Russia’s only aim is to safeguard its own interests,” he affirmed.

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On Monday, the Russian president once again defended the military operation his country launched in February 2022, arguing in his address at the summit in Tianjin, China, that “this crisis did not result from a Russian attack on Ukraine, but from a coup in Ukraine that was supported and caused by the West.”

He added that another root cause of the crisis was “the West’s continuous attempts to drag Ukraine into NATO.”

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Putin noted that the understandings reached during his meeting with the U.S. president last August paved the way toward a possible solution to the conflict. “In this regard, we highly value the efforts and proposals put forward by China and India aimed at facilitating a resolution to the Ukrainian crisis,” he said.

He concluded by expressing hope that the agreements reached at the recent Russian-American meeting in Alaska would also contribute to achieving this goal.

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