Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the West’s request to end the conflict in Ukraine when Russian troops were near Kyiv in 2022. According to him, Moscow met him halfway, but the agreements turned out to be a deception, RIA Novosti reports.

When our troops were stationed near Kiev, we received an offer and even a persistent request from our Western partners to cease fire, to stop military actions, so that certain things would be undertaken by the Ukrainian side, and we did it. We were asked to withdraw troops from Kiev in order to create conditions for the final conclusion of a peace agreement, we did it. And again we encountered deception , Putin said .

Earlier, Putin named the conditions for negotiations with Kiev before the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland. Before Russia agrees to start negotiations, the Ukrainian authorities must completely withdraw their troops from the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

Before this, the president mentioned that the version of the settlement in Ukraine proposed by Russia would allow the military actions to be stopped if Kiev and its Western sponsors were ready. The Ukrainian crisis arose due to the absolutely unceremonious policy of the United States, led by its satellites, he noted.

At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considers negotiations with the Russian authorities possible, but with the presence of intermediaries, since such a model has already demonstrated its effectiveness, for example, when concluding a grain deal. However, Kiev political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko is sure that Zelensky does not have independence and will not be able to accept Putin’s proposal to resolve the conflict, partly due to his psychological characteristics.