It appeared Trump’s figure of 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers lost in the war meant both killed and wounded. Zelenskyy said 43,000 soldiers had been killed in the war and that there had been 370,000 wounded soldiers.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov convened a conference call with reporters to address Trump’s comments.
Peskov said Russia was open to talks, but that they had to be based on agreements reached in Istanbul in 2022 and on current realities on the battlefield where Russian forces have been pushing forward at their fastest rate since the early days of the war in 2022.
Putin has said repeatedly that 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 future talks.
“Our position on Ukraine is well known,” said Peskov.
“The conditions for an immediate stop to hostilities were set out by President Putin in his speech to the Russian Foreign Ministry in June of this year. It is important to recall that it was Ukraine that refused and continues to refuse negotiations,” he said.
Putin has said that Ukraine must not join the NATO military alliance and that Russia should be left fully in control of four Ukrainian regions his troops partially control at the moment for a peace deal to be done.
Peskov noted that Zelenskyy had banned contacts with the Russian leadership through a special decree, which Peskov said would have to be revoked if talks were to proceed.
