Absence of talks to stop war is not Moscow’s fault: Putin

Bloomberg

With Russia’s invasion now into its 11th month, President Vladimir Putin said the absence of talks to stop the war is not Moscow’s fault. “It’s not we who refuse negotiations, but they,” Putin said in a TV interview. Russia is prepared to discuss “acceptable outcomes,” he added.
Air alerts sounded across Ukraine after Russian fighter jets, including one capable of carrying hypersonic missiles, took off from two Belarusian air bases, an official with Ukraine’s air force said. The alarms were later cancelled as the jets landed back in Belarus without incident.
The 10-month mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin troops killed ten and wounded dozens more in a Grad systems attack on the southern city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.
Russia fired five missiles and conducted an airstrike, according to Ukraine’s Military Staff. Kremlin troops carried out more attacks on civilian targets, including in Kherson, where ten people were killed and dozens injured. Russia is focusing its efforts on the offensive in the Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiivka regions in Donetsk. Ukraine said it hit four command posts and three areas with concentrated Russian manpower, and hit one Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. Russia’s naval grouping in the Black Sea has increased in the past few days and includes surface and underwater missile carriers equipped with Kalibr guided missiles.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in St Petersburg for the two-day summit of post-Soviet country leaders within the Commonwealth of Independent States that starts on Monday, according to his press service. Lukashenko, who provided his country’s territory for Russia’s attack on Ukraine, received Vladimir Putin and other top officials in Minsk for talks.
The Belarusian strongman visited the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center outside Moscow. Pope Francis used his Christmas message to lament the “icy winds of war”and make an impassioned plea for an immediate end to the “senseless” fighting in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. “Let us also see the faces of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, who are experiencing this Christmas in the dark and cold, far from their homes due to the devastation caused by 10 months of war,” the pontiff said.
Vladimir Putin said the absence of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine isn’t Russia’s fault but rather that of Kyiv and its Western allies, whom he said were trying to “tear apart@ Russia. “We are ready to negotiate with all the participants in this process about some acceptable outcomes, but this is their business – it’s not we who refuse negotiations, but they,” Putin said in an interview with Rossiya-1 state TV, according to Tass.
Russia has been trying to resolve the situation in Ukraine peacefully since 2014, but was “forced to stand up for the people who live in these territories,” Putin said in reference to eastern Ukraine, reiterating his reasoning for the invasion launched on February 24 that’s now into its 11th month.