Moscow does not refuse to hold talks with Kiev and it hopes it will be possible to achieve agreements on the diplomatic track, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with visiting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow on Tuesday.
"Although the military operation is in progress, we still hope that we will be able to achieve agreements on the diplomatic track. We are holding negotiations. We do not reject them," Putin said.
"I is clear to us that these issues will never be solved if we refer them to the level of the heads of state, without settling them before at least within the framework of a draft agreement," Putin stated. "And in this case, we simply cannot sign the security guarantees without resolving the territorial issues in relation to Crimea, Sevastopol and the republics of Donbass," he added.
