Moscow said on Monday that it will not negotiate with Kiev due to an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which it stressed caught it by surprise and is now in the second week.
Kyiv launched troops across the border on August 6 and has retained a piece of the Kursk area even as it has counterattacked in an assault that has angered Moscow.
As to this escapade in the present phase, ‘We will not talk’, said Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov to the Russian Shot Telegram channel; ‘At the moment it would be completely inappropriate to enter into a negotiating process’.
Asked when possible talks could begin between the two sides, he said, “I do not know; all depends on the circumstances on the battlefield, including in the Kursk region.
Ukraine’s operation, which went to planning in complete secrecy, is an intrusion into Russian territory and the largest since Russia began the war in Ukraine in February last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were hitting their goals in the ongoing operations in Russia’s Kursk region for nearly two weeks.
He earlier said that the operation was intended to put “more pressure” on Russia in order to help make peace “faster.”.
“We are achieving our goals. This morning we have another replenishment of the (prisoner of war) exchange fund for our country,” Zelensky said, a day after saying Ukraine was attempting to create a “buffer zone” in Russia.
Russia Accuses US for the Blasts in Nord Stream
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that it was ‘obvious’ the United States ‘called’ for the explosions that struck the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022.
