The president says Moscow is acting in the right direction \u2018because West led by US is trying to cleave Russia apart\u2019
\n MOSCOW:
\nRussia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired on Sunday.
\nRussia\u2019s Feb 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most deadly conflict in Europe since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
\nThere is, thus far, little end in sight to the war.
\nThe Kremlin says it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from all of its territory, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.
\n\u201cWe are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them – we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,\u201d Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in the interview.
\nCIA Director William Burns said in an interview published this month that while most conflicts end in negotiation, the CIA\u2019s assessment was that Russia was not yet serious about a real negotiation to end the war.
\nAn adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge that it was Russia which did not want any negotiations.
\n\u201cRussia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens,\u201d Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter. \u201cRussia doesn\u2019t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility.\u201d
\n\u2018No other choice\u2019
\nPutin said Russia was acting in the \u201cright direction\u201d in Ukraine because the West, led by the United States, was trying to cleave Russia apart. Washington denies it is plotting Russia\u2019s collapse.
\n\u201cI believe that we are acting in the right direction, we are defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people. And we have no other choice but to protect our citizens,\u201d Putin said.
\nAsked if the geopolitical conflict with the West was approaching a dangerous level, Putin said: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s so dangerous.\u201d
\nPutin said the West had begun the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 by toppling a pro-Russian president in the Maidan Revolution protests.
\nSoon after that revolution, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces began fighting Ukraine\u2019s armed forces in eastern Ukraine.
\n\u201cActually, the fundamental thing here is the policy of our geopolitical opponents which is aimed at pulling apart Russia, historical Russia,\u201d Putin said.
\nPutin casts what he calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine as a watershed moment when Moscow finally stood up to a Western bloc he says has been seeking to destroy Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
\nUkraine and the West say Putin has no justification for what they cast as an imperial-style war of occupation which has sown suffering and death across Ukraine.
\nPutin described Russia as a \u201cunique country\u201d and said the vast majority of its people were united in wanting to defend it.
\n\u201cAs for the main part – the 99.9% of our citizens, our people who are ready to give everything for the interests of the Motherland \u2013 there is nothing unusual for me here,\u201d Putin said.
\n\u201cThis just once again convinces me that Russia is a unique country and that we have an exceptional people. This has been confirmed throughout the history of Russia\u2019s existence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The president says Moscow is acting in the right direction \u2018because West led by US is trying to cleave Russia apart\u2019 MOSCOW: Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-303461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n