Certain positive developments in talks with Ukraine: Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday some progress had been made in Moscow's talks with Ukraine, while the Kremlin said the conflict would end when the West took action to address Moscow concerns.

“There are certain positive shifts, negotiators on our side tell me,” Putin said after meeting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “I will talk about all of this later.”

People take shelter from shelling at a metro station in Kharkiv | Photo: Reuters

He also stressed Western sanctions would not hinder Russian development and that Russia would end up stronger. 

The remarks came hour after Putin in a video call to Russia’s Security Council said his government plans to send thousands of local fighters from West Asia, along with weapons, to join its forces in Ukraine. “We need to help them get to the conflict zone,” Putin said. 

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told the meeting Russia had received more than 16,000 applications from people in West Asian countries to help fight in two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.

Putin also endorsed a proposal to send more weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems, to forces in Ukraine’s separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Russia recognised as independent last month. 

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, during an informal summit of EU heads of state at Chateau de Versailles to discuss further actions against Russia | Photo: Reuters

Putin’s West Asian mercenaries remark came even as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba met in Turkey on Thursday in the highest-level talks since the conflict began. No breakthrough was made. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the other hand, said: “It's impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it because ... we have reached a strategic turning point.” He didn't elaborate.

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