MOSCOW – Russia said on Friday that it will hold talks with Ukraine if the armed forces of the eastern European country surrender.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to media reports, said: “We are ready for talks any time, as soon as the Ukrainian armed forces respond to the call of our president, stop resisting and surrender their weapons.”
“No one is going to attack or oppress them, let them go back to their families,” Lavrov added, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephonic conversation with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping said that he is willing to hold high level talks with Ukraine.
Putin told Xi that the United States and NATO had not paid attention to the legitimate security concerns raised by Russia, and continued to expand military deployment eastward, challenging Russia’s strategic bottom line, according to a statement on the Chinese foreign ministry website.
Russia is willing to conduct high-level negotiations with Ukraine, Putin was cited as saying in the statement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian is read to send its delegation to Belarusian capital Minsk to hold talks with Ukraine.
As the warn between the two countries have entered the second day, Russia’s defence ministry claimed that its forces have captured the strategic Hostomel airfield and close on the Ukraine capital of Kyiv.
