Putin, Zelensky, ready for dialogue in Minsk over Ukraine war

President Vladimir Putin on Friday indicated readiness dialogue with Ukraine over the eastern Ukraine crisis; the authorities said the President is willing to send Russian representatives to Belarus for talks with Ukraine. Putin had early Friday sent a message to the President of Belarus to organize negotiation in Minsk with Ukraine after invasion of eastern Ukraine on Thursday.  The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had earlier called for dialogue with Putin before the war broke out on Thursday.

The spokesman of Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, disclosed on Friday that the Russian President is “ready” to send a high-level delegation “for talks with a Ukrainian delegation” to Belarusian capital, Minsk, where similar peace talks were hosted in the past over Ukraine crisis. Peskov maintained that  Putin’s ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, promised the Russian leader he would “create the conditions” for such a summit.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, earlier requested for talks with the Russian President during the period of diplomatic pressures from Western leaders to stop Putin from going on the offensive.

The Ukraine President, Zelensky, had decried that he tried to call Putin as tension escalated but “there was no answer, only silence”.

Zelensky issued another statement on Friday, after the Thursday military operations commenced, declaring: “I would like to address the President of the Russian Federation once again. Fighting is going on all over Ukraine. Let’s sit down at the negotiating table to stop the deaths of people.”

Putin had recognized that independence of two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine before going on the offensive on Thursday.