Vladimir Putin tells China’s President Xi he’s ready to hold high-level talks with Kiev.
QUICK FACTS:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Moscow is ready to hold high-level talks with Kiev.
- The statement was published Friday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website, The Russian News Agency (TASS) reports.
- “Russia is ready to negotiate with the Ukrainian side at a high level,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
WHAT ELSE PUTIN IS SAYING:
- Putin alleges a “gang of junkies and neo-Nazis” have taken over Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, and have taken “the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”
- Putin argues his Russian Army is not engaging in battle with “regular units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” but with “nationalist formations” whom he claims are directly responsible for a “genocide” in Donbass, the disputed region of Ukraine inhabited by Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians.
- The Russian president went on to claim that the responsibility for “the bloodshed of civilians in the people’s republics” rests upon this “gang.”
- He went on to appeal to the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, asking them to “not allow neo-Nazis and Bandera supporters to use your children, your wives, and elderly people as human shields.” “Take power into your own hands,” he urged.
BACKGROUND:
- President Putin said in a televised address on Thursday morning that he made a decision to carry out special military operations against Ukraine in response to a request from the heads of the pro-Russia Donbass republics in Ukraine.
- Putin said he wanted to protect Russians and others in those Ukrainian territories “who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.”
- The Russian leader also stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.
- On Thursday morning, Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, introduced martial law across the country, TASS notes.
