Moscow will not hold peace talks with Kyiv while Ukrainian troops remain in control of parts of the southwestern Kursk region, Russia’s former defense minister and current Security Council chief Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.
“Naturally, we won’t have any negotiations with them [Ukraine] until we throw them out of our territory,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run TASS news agency.
Shoigu’s remarks appear to contradict President Vladimir Putin’s recent claim that he “never refused” to negotiate with Kyiv — even as Ukrainian troops stormed into the Kursk region early last month, seizing dozens of towns and villages and displacing tens of thousands of people.
Putin has repeatedly said he would be willing to negotiate with Ukraine only if it relinquished four partially occupied regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in September 2022.
In May, the Kremlin leader replaced Shoigu with economist Andrei Belousov, Russia’s former first deputy prime minister, as Russia’s defense minister in a major cabinet shakeup.
The International Criminal Court in June issued arrest warrants for Shoigu and Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. Both were accused of directing attacks at civilian targets and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians, as well as of “inhumane acts” in Ukraine.
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