Russian President Vladimir Putin has allegedly not shown any interest in a dialogue with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, White House Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said on Thursday.
“Mr. Putin has shown, contrary to his rhetoric, absolutely no interest in dialogue with President Zelenskyy in this war. Quite the contrary, everything he’s doing, shows that he wants to continue to prosecute this war,” Kirby said during a press briefing.
Kirby underscored that the decision to start any negotiations with Russia on any potential peace agreement belongs to Zelenskyy.
Earlier on Thursday, Putin said at the Valdai International Discussion Club that Kiev publicly refused to implement the Minsk agreements with support from its Western “supervisors” and noted that the Ukraine conflict is in a way a “civil war.”
On February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk requested help to defend them from intensifying attacks by Ukrainian troops. The Russian Ministry of Defense said the operation is solely targeting Ukraine’s military infrastructure.
![Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, attends the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting via video link and delivers a keynote address in Beijing, capital of China, March 15, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]](https://newsghana.com.gh/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture-1-9-265x198.jpg "Xi attends dialogue between CPC, world political parties")
