Russia president Putin says Ukraine did not make good on preliminary peace deal

KYIV (REUTERS) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (July 20) said Moscow did not see any desire from Ukraine to fulfil the terms of what he described as a preliminary peace deal agreed to in March.

Putin, speaking to reporters in televised comments after a visit to Iran, said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, which Moscow’s forces invaded in late February.

There was no immediate response from the Ukrainian government to Putin’s remarks in the early hours of Wednesday.

Putin, asked about a possible meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Kyiv had not stuck to the terms of a preliminary peace deal he said had been “practically achieved” in March.

“The final result of course... depends on the willingness of the contracting parties to implement the agreements that were reached. Today we see the powers in Kyiv have no such desire.”

Negotiations took place in March, with both sides making proposals but without a breakthrough. At the time, Zelensky said only a concrete result from the talks could be trusted.

Russian President Putin met Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Teheran on Tuesday, stressing closer ties between the two countries who are both under Western sanctions.

During his Iran visit Putin also met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to discuss a deal that would resume Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports, now blockaded by Russia.

Putin said that not all the issues had been resolved yet on grain shipments, “but the fact that there is movement is already good.”

It was Putin’s first in-person meeting with a Nato leader since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 and was a pointed message to the West about Russian plans to forge closer strategic ties with Iran, China and India to help offset Western sanctions imposed over the invasion.

The trip shows how isolated Russia has become, said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.

Kirby also said the United States was preparing to unveil another weapons package for Ukraine. Citing US intelligence, he accused Russia of laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory.

In Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that any peace in Ukraine would be the way Moscow wanted it.

“Russia will achieve all its goals. There will be peace – on our terms,” said Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the Kremlin’s Security Council.

The Kremlin has said there is no time limit to a conflict it calls a “special military operation” to ensure its own security.

Ukraine and the West condemn it as an unprovoked aggressive war meant to grab territory and erase the identity of a nation that was under Moscow’s thumb in the former Soviet Union until 1991.

Russia was trying to “drag” Ukraine into a protracted conflict into the winter, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in a magazine interview.

“It is very important for us not to enter the winter. After winter, when the Russians will have more time to dig in, it will certainly be more difficult,” for any Ukrainian counter-offensive, Yermak said.

More than two weeks have passed since Russia’s last major territorial gain – capturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk.

Ukraine’s General Army Staff said on Tuesday that Moscow’s forces were busy shoring up their positions in recently-seized territory and mounting limited but unsuccessful ground assaults in numerous different locations.

Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down a Russian fighter jet with a missile on Tuesday over Nova Kakhovka, to the east of the city of Kherson, which is occupied by Moscow’s forces. In a Facebook post, the air force said the plane was most likely a Sukhoi Su-35.

Reuters could not immediately verify the Ukrainian account.

But in a now familiar pattern, Russian missiles slammed into targets across Ukraine. At least one person was killed in a missile strike on the centre of the eastern city of Kramatorsk, the regional governor said.

Buildings in a town in the Kharkiv region were also hit, with footage showing piles of rubble being cleared by excavators.

Putin’s talks with Turkey’s Erdogan will focus on a plan to get Ukrainian grain exports moving again, unblocking supplies that are vital to feed millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are expected to sign a deal later this week aimed at resuming the shipping of grain from Ukraine across the Black Sea.

Footage from Ukraine’s Odesa region showed badly-damaged buildings smouldering from Russian barrages.

Oleksii Matsulevych, a spokesman for the regional administration, said on Telegram the Russian strike had injured at least four people, burned houses to the ground, and set other homes on fire.

Presidential adviser Yermak wrote on Twitter that the houses had been struck by seven Russian Kalibr cruise missiles.

“A terrorist state is longing to defeat those (who are) fearless with fear,” he said. “We will neither break nor give up.”

As the war drags on, concerns that Russia may halt supplies of natural gas to Europe have risen.

In response, the European Union is considering a voluntary 15 per cent cut in natural gas use by its member states beginning next month, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing EU diplomats.

Brussels is expected to publish plans on Wednesday for how the 27 EU members can reduce gas use. The exact number for the reduction target was not specified in a draft document of the plan seen by Reuters.

Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom was ready to fulfil its obligations on gas exports, Putin said, and was not to blame for a reduction in gas transit capacity, including shutting down one of the routes via Ukraine to Europe by Kyiv.