Putin's negotiator at Istanbul talks says Moscow's aim is to secure a long-lasting peace with Ukraine

By Vladimir Soldatkin

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Vladimir Medinsky, the caput of Russia's delegation astatine bid talks connected Ukraine successful Turkey, said connected Thursday that Moscow's purpose was to unafraid a long-lasting bid with Kyiv by looking for communal crushed and removing the reasons for the conflict.

Medinsky, who helped pb 2022 talks which collapsed, said Russia considered the planned talks successful Istanbul to beryllium a continuation of those failed 2022 talks.

"We see these negotiations arsenic a continuation of the bid process successful Istanbul, which, unfortunately, was interrupted by the Ukrainian broadside 3 years ago," Medinsky told reporters successful Istanbul.

Kyiv says that the presumption Russia was offering it successful 2022 were unacceptable and would person amounted to a capitulation.

"The delegation is determined to beryllium constructive, to hunt for imaginable solutions and communal ground. The task of nonstop negotiations with the Ukrainian broadside is sooner oregon aboriginal to execute semipermanent bid by eliminating the basal basal causes of the conflict," said Medinsky.

Days aft Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine successful February 2022, Russia and Ukraine began talks successful Belarus that aboriginal moved to Istanbul. A draught considered determination which acceptable retired a model for a imaginable colony became known arsenic the "Istanbul Communique".

The 2022 talks broke disconnected successful May, but Russian officials person agelong argued that a colony tin beryllium reached on the lines of the Istanbul Communique. Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's peculiar envoy, has besides referred to the 2022 draught arsenic a imaginable usher to aboriginal peace.

Under the draft, a transcript of which Reuters has reviewed, Ukraine was being asked to hold to imperishable neutrality successful instrumentality for planetary information guarantees from the 5 imperishable members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and different nations including Belarus, Canada, Germany, Israel, Poland, and Turkey.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Andrew Osborn/Guy Faulconbridge)