Talks with Ukraine have reached a dead end: Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pic/AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said that peace talks have reached a "dead-end situation" after Ukraine made allegations about war crimes, media reports said. In a rare public appearance alongside his Belarus counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, Putin dismissed the discovery of dead bodies lying in the streets in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as "fake", the BBC reported.

He insisted that Russian military's goals in Ukraine are "noble". The Russian President said talks with Ukraine had derailed because the Ukrainian side had made "fake claims" about war crimes and extra demands for security guarantees. "We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us," he said. He added that Russia would continue its operation to defend the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko said allegations of atrocities in northern Ukraine were "a psychological operation carried out by the English" in Ukraine, BBC reported. Ukraine and Russia are building up their military forces in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas as Moscow switches the focus of its offensive, BBC reported. The US and Britain say they are looking into reports that chemical weapons have been used by Russian forces attacking Mariupol.

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