Putin says that RF's conditions for ending war against Ukraine remain unchanged

Russian president vladimir putin confirmed that the conditions he announced in June 2024 for ending the war against Ukraine remain valid.

He stated this during a joint press conference with Alexander Lukashenko, whom a number of countries do not recognize as the legitimate president of Belarus, TASS reports.

Putin reiterated the Kremlin's main demands:

• The complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from territories that russia considers its own - in particular, the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Regions;
• Guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO;
• Consolidation of Ukraine's neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status.

According to putin, this should create a "long-lasting and strong peace" that would ensure the security of both russia and Ukraine. He also stated that it is worth considering the issue of "European security as a whole", referring to the alleged ideas that some Ukrainian negotiators "carefully express".

The Kremlin leader positively mentioned the negotiations in Istanbul, in particular - about the exchange of prisoners and bodies of the killed. He noted that russia, for "humanitarian reasons", transferred the bodies of "thousands of dead" to Ukraine, but in return received only "dozens" of bodies of russian soldiers.

As a reminder, the United States of America held a new round of non-public negotiations with the aggressor country of russia regarding Ukraine. The meeting between representatives of Washington and Moscow did not bring any progress.