Amid talks of the potential meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, the former has made clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping the kind of peace he wants for Ukraine.
Putin, who had a video conversation with Xi just hours after Trump assumed charge as the President, confirmed that the goal of the Ukrainian settlement would only be based on Russia's interests.
"As for the Ukrainian settlement itself, as the president emphasized the other day, and he said this today: the goal of the settlement should not be some kind of short-term truce, not some kind of respite, but a long-term peace based on respect for our objective interests," Russian head of state's aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted by Interfax.
However, the conversation was not connected to Trump's inauguration, a Russian statement reports, as the arrangement to hold it had been made in December. The conversation lasted one hour and 35 minutes and reportedly "was held in a friendly atmosphere".
Putin has earlier stressed that any peaceful settlement should be based on "eliminating the root causes" of the conflict. These include Ukraine's permanent "neutral" status, its non-membership in NATO, strict limits on the size of the Ukrainian army, and the removal of the Ukrainian government from power. According to the Institute for the Study of War, this is effectively a demand for Ukraine's complete surrender.
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Putin's statement comes as Kremlin said it would take months for Putin and Trump to meet and is not expected before at least March. Before the in-person conversation between the two leaders can occur, they are expected to hold phone conversations to discuss the details of the potential meeting, according to Russian journalists.
"Journalists can still speculate on the topic of the phone conversation when exactly it will take place,” a source was quoted by reports. It added that the meeting is unlikely to occur before Trump embarks on his first overseas trip. "I’m not sure that it will happen during the winter," one source told the reporter.