Putin says Russia ready for talks with Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv's offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing.

Putin said a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, could serve as the basis for talks.

Ukraine launched an unprecedented cross border incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations.

Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia's Eastern Economic Forum in the city of Vladivostok, Putin said Russia was ready for talks but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow and Kyiv reached in Istanbul in 2022, the terms of which were never made public.

"Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialed in Istanbul," Putin said.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a deal in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine.

"We managed to reach an agreement, that is the whole point. The signature of the head of the Ukrainian delegation who initialed this document testifies to this, which means that the Ukrainian side was generally satisfied with the agreements reached," Putin said.

"It did not come into force only because they were given a command not to do so, because the elites of the United States, Europe, some European countries, wanted to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia," Putin added.

Putin also said Moscow's main Ukraine aim was to capture the Donbas region and that Russia's army was "gradually" pushing back Kyiv's forces from the Kursk region.

"The aim of the enemy was to make us worry... and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective," Putin said.

"Our armed forces have stabilized the situation [in Kursk] and started gradually squeezing [Ukrainian forces] out from our territory."

Regarding the upcoming presidential elections in the U.S., Putin said he supported Kamala Harris, an apparent wry remark a day after Washington accused Moscow of seeking to influence the vote.

"Firstly, [US President Joe] Biden recommended all his supporters support Mrs. Harris," Putin said.

"Here, we are going to do that too, we're going to support her," he added, with a wry smile. "She laughs so contagiously that it shows that everything is fine with her."

Putin's comments come a day after the U.S. indicted two employees of state-run Russian news network RT and slapped sanctions on its top editors. Washington accused them of trying to influence the upcoming U.S. ballot.