Putin signals ready for Ukraine talks based on 2022 Istanbul draft deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Moscow is open to negotiations with Ukraine, but insists that they should be based on a deal from Istanbul in 2022 that was never finalised.

“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually signed in Istanbul,” Putin said on Wednesday at the Eastern Economic Forum in the city of Vladivostok.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a deal in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine.

"We managed to reach an agreement, that is the whole point. The signature of the head of the Ukrainian delegation who initialled this document testifies to this, which means that the Ukrainian side was generally satisfied with the agreements reached," Putin said.

"It did not come into force only because they were given a command not to do so, because the elites of the United States, Europe — some European countries — wanted to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia," Putin added.

Recently, Ukraine launched an unprecedented cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages.

In response, Putin had said there could be no talk of negotiations.