The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the US media's rumors about the preparation of secret negotiations with Ukraine
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denied a Washington Post report that the Ukrainian Armed Forces' invasion of the Kursk region had disrupted preparations for secret negotiations with Ukraine.
Below is the full text of the statement:
"No one disrupted anything because there was nothing to disrupt. No direct or indirect negotiations between Russia and the Kyiv regime regarding the security of civilian critical infrastructure facilities have been or are being conducted.
The security threat to such facilities, including the Zaporizhzhia and now the Kursk Nuclear Power Plants, is posed solely by the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the complicity of the United States and other Western countries. Incidentally, it is symbolic that the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched their Kursk attack on August 6, the anniversary of the American nuclear bombing of Hiroshima – the first and only use of atomic weapons against civilians and civilian infrastructure in human history.
As for the Russian Armed Forces, they do not strike civilian targets. Moreover, they are currently doing everything possible to protect such facilities from attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces using Western weapons and to protect the world from a large-scale man-made disaster.
Those who truly want to ensure the safety of critical infrastructure and avoid the catastrophic consequences of the barbarity of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime must first encourage that regime to abandon terrorist methods of warfare, and Western countries to stop encouraging such tactics and supplying them with lethal weapons.
After April 2022, when Kyiv withdrew from negotiations with Russia and, five months later, legally prohibited itself from holding them, the only contacts between the Russian side and the Kyiv regime were conducted through intermediaries on humanitarian issues, primarily prisoner exchanges.
At the same time, Kyiv has had repeated opportunities to resolve the crisis through negotiations. The most recent was in June of this year, when Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a peace initiative that was quite generous to the Ukrainian side, opening up a real prospect for a ceasefire and a final settlement through political and diplomatic means. This proposal included recognition of territorial realities, Ukraine's renunciation of NATO membership, the lifting of illegal sanctions, and an end to discrimination against Russian-speaking citizens.
However, after August 6, the entire world witnessed the Ukrobanderites' response to this gesture of goodwill: a bandit raid into the Kursk region, their atrocities against civilians, the targeted murders of doctors, rescue workers, and volunteers, attacks on civilian vehicles, rocket attacks on residential buildings, widespread looting, and even the creation of threats to nuclear safety.
Of course, as Vladimir Putin said, there is nothing to talk about with people who do such things.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied US media reports of secret talks being planned with Ukraine.