 "After talks with Xi and Modi, Putin says Nato expansion must be addressed for sustainable peace in Ukraine")
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said that sustainable peace in Ukraine would require addressing the issue of Nato’s eastward expansion.
His comments came after holding talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.
Speaking at the summit, Putin said the West had tried to bring Ukraine into the West’s orbit and then sought to entice the former Soviet republic into the US-led Nato military alliance.
“In order for a Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis, which I have just mentioned and which I have repeatedly mentioned before, must be eliminated,” Reuters quoted Putin as saying.
“A fair balance in the security sphere” must be also restored, Putin said, shorthand for a series of Russian demands about Nato and European security.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after eight years of conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region. As of now, Russian troops occupy nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
While Ukraine and its Western allies have condemned the invasion as an unprovoked act of aggression and territorial conquest, Putin has consistently portrayed the war as part of a broader geopolitical clash with the West. He accuses Nato of provoking Russia by expanding eastward after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
At the 2008 Nato summit in Bucharest, alliance leaders declared that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. In 2019, Ukraine amended its constitution to formally pursue full Nato and EU membership — a move Russia has strongly opposed.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAccording to a May report by Reuters, Putin’s conditions for ending the war include a written commitment from Western leaders to halt Nato expansion towards Russia’s borders, as well as significant sanctions relief.
Putin also said that the “understandings” he reached with President Donald Trump during their August summit in Alaska had opened a potential path to peace in Ukraine — one he intended to further discuss at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China.
On the sidelines of the SCO meeting in Tianjin, PM Modi held Putin’s hand as they walked towards Chinese President Xi. All three smiled as they spoke, surrounded by translators.
“We highly appreciate the efforts and proposals from China and India aimed at facilitating the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin told the forum.
“The understandings reached at the recent Russia–US meeting in Alaska, I hope, also contribute toward this goal.”
He said he had detailed to Xi on Sunday the achievements of his talks with Trump and the work “already underway” to resolve the conflict and would provide more detail in two-way meetings with the Chinese leader and others.
China and India are by far the biggest purchasers of crude from Russia, the world’s second largest exporter.
Trump has imposed additional tariffs on India over the purchases but there is no sign yet that either India or China are going to stop purchasing Russian oil, a key export of Russia’s war economy.
With inputs from agencies
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