Russian President Vladimir Putin told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who visited Ukraine on Tuesday, that he still hoped for talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.
” Despite the fact that the military operation continues, we still hope that we will be able to reach an agreement through diplomacy. “We are negotiating, we are not rejecting (the talks),” Putin told Guterres in a televised statement.
Sitting across from Guterres at a long table in the Kremlin, Putin said efforts to hold talks with Ukraine had been strained by allegations of atrocities committed by Russian forces in the city of Butsa outside Kyiv.
Guterres reiterates call from a previous meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Moscow and Kyiv to work with the UN to set up aid and evacuation corridors to help civilians in Ukraine.
