Moscow has never refused to hold talks on Ukraine and is confident that the conflict will sooner or later end in peace and relations between the two countries’ people will be restored, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Tucker Carlson published on the US journalist’s website.
Russia has never refused to engage in dialogue on Ukraine but after the Istanbul talks were suspended in March 2022, Moscow has no intention of taking the first step. "Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else's mistakes?"
The conditions for resolving the issue, including the option of keeping the situation where it is now, need to be discussed. "It is a subject matter for the negotiations no one is willing to conduct or, to put it more accurately, they're willing, but do not know how to do it. I know they want to. It is not just I see it, but I know they do want it, but they are struggling to understand how to do it."
"Who knows. I don't understand it myself. There was a general starting point. For some reason, everyone had the illusion that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield. Because of arrogance, because of a pure heart, but not because of a great mind."
The West is wrong when it thinks that "the Russian people have been split by hostilities forever": "Sooner or later it will result in an agreement." "This probably sounds strange given the current situation but the relations between the two peoples will be rebuilt anyway. It will take a lot of time, but they will heal."
Ukraine is an artificial state in a sense, "shaped at Stalin's will" particularly of Hungarian, Polish and Romanian lands. Putin said he had never discussed a possible return of the Hungarian lands, which had been handed over to Ukraine under Stalin, with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. As for the Black Sea region, it "had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever."
"I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbass. As I have already said, by means of weapons." However, NATO’s expansion in breach of earlier promises is also something to remember. "Let us go back to the coup d'etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn't it? We may go back and forth endlessly."
