Putin: Peace talks with Ukraine ‘at a dead end’

Moscow-Kiev peace talks are deadlocked, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday during a joint interview with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader, who ordered his country’s armed forces to invade Ukraine in the early hours of February 24, accused Ukraine of “deviating from what was agreed in the two sides’ talks in Istanbul” weeks ago.

Putin called the massacre in Boutsa, northwest of Kiev, where Russian soldiers allegedly executed dozens of civilians, “fake”, leaving their bodies on the streets, where Ukrainian forces found them when they recaptured the city.

The Russian head of state also spoke of the “failure” of the West’s economic “blitzkrieg” against Russia, noting that “common sense hopes to prevail” among Western leaders.

The Russian president noted that the West does not understand that “difficult conditions strengthen the unity of the Russian people.”

He said Moscow had “done well” to launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“Russia can not be isolated”

Earlier in the day, President Vladimir Putin warned the West that efforts to isolate Moscow would fail, citing the success of the Soviet space program as proof that Russia could make dramatic leaps forward in difficult conditions.

Russia says it will never rely on the West again after the United States and its allies imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow to punish Putin for ordering a “special military operation” on February 24. himself, in Ukraine.

Sixty-one years ago today, the Soviet Yuri Gagarin entered the history books as the first man to travel into space. On the occasion of this anniversary, Putin went to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East, 5,550 km east of Moscow.

“The sanctions were complete, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was again first in space,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russian state television.

“We do not intend to isolate ourselves,” he said. “It is impossible to seriously isolate anyone in the modern world – especially a country as big as Russia.”

Russia’s successes in space during the Cold War, such as Gagarin’s flight and the launch in 1957 of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite from Earth, are of particular significance to Russia: both events shocked the United States. The launch of Sputnik 1 led the United States to recommend NASA in an effort to bridge the gap with Moscow.

Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is necessary because the United States is using Ukraine to threaten Russia – and through NATO’s military alliance – and that Moscow had to defend Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine against prosecutions.

He said today that he had no doubt that Russia would achieve all its goals in Ukraine – a conflict that he described as inevitable and necessary to defend Russia in the long run.

“Its objectives are absolutely clear and noble,” Putin said, referring to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces have put up strong resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in a bid to force it to withdraw its forces.

Putin toured the Vostochny Cosmodrome with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“Why are we so worried about these sanctions?” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Russian state television.

Mr Lukashenko, who has at times made statements that appear to contradict the stated positions of his closest ally on a number of issues, has insisted that Belarus be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Belarus has been unjustly described as an “accomplice of the attacker”.