West must accept Moscow’s demands

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "open to negotiations" on Ukraine but the West must accept Moscow's demands, the Kremlin said yesterday, a day after US President Joe Biden said he was willing to talk if Putin were looking for a way to end the war.

Speaking after talks on Thursday at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron, Biden said he was ready to speak with Putin "if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he's looking for a way to end the war", adding the Russian leader "hasn't done that yet".

Biden has not spoken directly with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. In March, Biden branded Putin a "butcher" who "cannot stay in power".

Now, after more than nine months of fighting and with winter tightening its grip, Western countries are trying to boost aid for Ukraine as it reels from Russian missile and drone attacks targeting key energy infrastructure that have left millions without heating, electricity and water.

Fighting is raging in eastern Ukraine, with the town of Bakhmut the main target of Moscow's artillery attacks, while Russian forces in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions remain on the defensive, Ukraine's General Staff said in its latest battlefield update.

In a bid to reduce the money available for Moscow's war effort, the European Union has tentatively agreed to a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, diplomats said. The measure will need to be approved by all EU governments in a written procedure by Friday.

In Moscow's first public response to Biden's overture, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "The president of the Russian Federation has always been, is and remains open to negotiations in order to ensure our interests."

However, Peskov said the US refusal to recognise annexed territory in Ukraine as Russian was hindering a search for ways to end the war. Moscow has previously sought sweeping security guarantees including a reversal of Nato's eastern expansion.

"What did President Biden say in fact? He said that negotiations are possible only after Putin leaves Ukraine," Peskov told reporters, adding Moscow was "certainly" not ready to accept those conditions.

Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a phone call yesterday that the Western line on Ukraine was "destructive" and urged Berlin to rethink its approach, the Kremlin said.

In Berlin's readout on the call, Scholz's spokesperson said the chancellor had condemned Russian air strikes against civilian infrastructure and called for a diplomatic solution to the war "including a withdrawal of Russian troops".

Separately, the German government confirmed it was preparing to deliver seven Gepard tanks to Ukraine, adding to the 30 air-defence tanks already being used to fight Russian forces.

Biden and Macron said in a joint statement after their talks on Thursday they were determined to hold Russia to account "for widely documented atrocities and war crimes, committed both by its regular armed forces and by its proxies" in Ukraine.

Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday it was "outraged" by a statement from the French foreign ministry that supported European Union plans to create a tribunal on possible crimes committed by Moscow in Ukraine.

On the ground, three people were killed and seven wounded in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson over the past 24 hours, the regional governor said yesterday.

Meanwhile, Russian-installed officials in Donetsk said three people had died yesterday after Ukrainian forces shelled the eastern Ukrainian city.

In a grisly development, several Ukrainian embassies abroad received "bloody packages" containing animal eyes, Ukraine's foreign ministry said yesterday after a series of letter bombs were sent to sites in Spain including Kyiv's embassy in Madrid.