Moscow (agencies)
Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed yesterday that his country is ready to begin negotiations as soon as Ukrainian forces are withdrawn from the entire territory of the new territories annexed to Russia, and Kiev announces its abandonment of its intention to join NATO.
Putin said, during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry: Our conditions for starting such a conversation are simple and are summed up in the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhye provinces, and from the entire territory of these regions.
He added: As soon as they announce in Kiev that they are ready for such a decision and begin a real withdrawal of forces from these areas, as well as officially notify them of abandoning plans to join NATO, an order for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations will be issued by us, literally at the same moment.
Putin stressed that Russia is ready to sit at the negotiating table regarding Ukraine “until tomorrow,” while understanding all the fine details.
On the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized an agreement by Western leaders to use proceeds from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, with a lending deal, to be activated at the end of this year, amounting to $50 billion in interest on these assets. Putin described the matter as “theft” and vowed revenge. He said that the Western powers are still trying to “establish at least a legal basis” for the decision they took the day before yesterday. He added in a speech delivered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, “But despite all the confusion, theft will remain theft.” But it will not go unpunished.”
The US government said that about $280 billion of Russian Central Bank funds were frozen in Western countries due to sanctions imposed since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis more than two years ago.
It is noteworthy that the bulk of the funds are located within the European Union. War-torn Ukraine is set to use the money to bolster its military defense, fund the reconstruction of its infrastructure and finance its budget.
On the ground, the Ukrainian Air Force Command announced yesterday that Russia had launched several attacks on Ukraine using various missiles, including high-speed “Kingal” missiles. The danger of the advanced “Kinjal” missiles lies in the difficulty of intercepting them by conventional air defense systems due to their high speed and explosive power. The Ukrainian public broadcaster “Suspilin” reported, citing citizens, that multiple explosions were heard yesterday, in the Khmelnytskyi region in the west of the country, where there is a major Ukrainian air base near the city of Starokostyantinev, which was scheduled to receive Western F-16 fighters. » Which the allies will send to Ukraine. The Mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, also reported on the Telegram platform that explosions had been reported near the capital, Kiev, due to air defenses responding to attacks. There have been no reports so far of damage to civilian infrastructure. The Russian Ministry of Defense had announced earlier yesterday that air defense systems had shot down 87 Ukrainian drones over 6 regions of the country, 70 of which were over the territory of Rostov Oblast in the past 24 hours.
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