The Russian president accused the West of pressuring Kyiv not to cease hostilities in his country. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed China, Brazil, and India as possible mediators in future peace negotiations with Ukraine.

“We respect our friends and partners who are sincerely interested in resolving all issues related to this conflict. This mainly refers to China, Brazil, and India,” Putin said during the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum held in the city of Vladivostok.

Putin once again accused the West of pressuring Kyiv not to cease hostilities in the neighboring country. “To this day, we do not see the conditions for holding peace negotiations,” said Dmitry Peskov, the presidential spokesperson.

Three BRICS Mediators

“Are we willing to engage in negotiations with the Ukrainians? We never opposed that. But not on the basis of certain fleeting demands, but rather on documents that were agreed upon and actually initialed in Istanbul,” he said, referring to the agreements from March 2022.

According to Putin, if the Ukrainians had signed that document, “the war would have ended long ago,” but instead, the goal of the U.S. and Europe is to achieve Russia’s strategic defeat. “This is not happening,” he said, adding that China, Brazil, and India “honestly aspire to help understand all the details of this complex process. I am in constant contact with our colleagues on this matter.”

In October, the leaders of these three countries will meet with Putin in the Tatar city of Kazan, which will host the summit of the BRICS group of emerging countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has consistently supported the Russian argument that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is primarily responsible for the current conflict, though he has not completely severed ties with Kyiv. In fact, Xi received the Ukrainian Foreign Minister in Beijing in July.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a close relationship with Putin but also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv in August, urging “innovative solutions” to restore peace. Meanwhile, Brazilian President Lula da Silva has advocated for a ceasefire and direct talks with Putin.

What Putin made clear again today is that before negotiating with the enemy, Russia must expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region, where a Ukrainian incursion will mark one month on Friday.

“Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and have begun to expel the enemy from the border territories,” he said, adding that Kyiv had not achieved its goal with the attack, which was to halt the Russian offensive, particularly in Donbas.

“On the contrary, by moving their largest and best-trained units to the border areas, the enemy weakened in key sectors, and our troops accelerated offensive operations,” Putin explained.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine has suffered more than 10,000 casualties in Kursk, where it controls a hundred localities and about 1,300 square kilometers. Russian forces have taken the Ukrainian town of Zavitne in their advance toward the stronghold of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian project Deep State, the Russian army have liberated about 355 square kilometers in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk during the month of August.