Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he wanted to “continue working together” with Westerners on European security to defuse the crisis around Ukraine.
“We are ready to continue working together. We are ready to go down the path of negotiation,” he said in Moscow during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
However, he once once more regretted the rejection by the West of his main demands, deploring not having received “unfortunately a constructive response” to them.
These demands are the end of the Alliance’s enlargement policy, the commitment not to deploy offensive weapons near Russian territory and the withdrawal of NATO infrastructure from the 1997 borders, before the organization does not host former members of the Soviet bloc.
The Russian president also stressed that he was not giving up on these demands and that they would be part of the “complex” of the Russian-Western talks.
“Do we want (a war) or not? Of course not. That’s why we put forward our proposals for a negotiation process,” he said.
Mr. Putin also confirmed a “partial withdrawal of the military” from the border with Ukraine, however refusing to comment on it.
He also said that he “cannot turn a blind eye to the way the United States and NATO deal with the principle of the indivisibility of security”, Moscow judging that Westerners are trying to strengthen their own security at the expense of that of Russia.
