Open to direct dialogue with Joe Biden for Ukrainian it’s about Vladimir PutinRussian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday, though he was quick to add that the West’s refusal to recognize the annexed Ukrainian territories as Russian makes peace difficult. He added that the West’s demand for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraineas a condition of negotiations is unacceptable and amounts to the abolition of the possibility of negotiations.

A day earlier, during the visit of the President of France Emmanuel Macron at the White House, Joe Biden stressed that he was ready to talk with the Russian president “if he is really interested in finding a way to end the war, which he has not yet shown.” It was a marked change in tone from last March, a month after the Russian invasion began, when Biden called Putin a “butcher” and said he “can’t stay in power.”

The prospect of a political solution to the Ukrainian conflict was the main topic of Vladimir Putin’s telephone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz yesterday morning. According to the office, Soltz made it clear to his interlocutor that “there must be a diplomatic solution as soon as possible, which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops.”

For his part, Putin called “catastrophic” military support for Ukraine from Germany and other Western countries, which, according to the Russian leader, “leads Kyiv to the complete abandonment of any idea of ​​negotiations.” In addition, he asked the German chancellor to allow Russia to participate in the investigation of “terrorist attacks” on Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic. The German magazine Spiegel reported yesterday that Berlin will hand over seven more Gepard tanks to the Ukrainians by spring.

The Kremlin rejects the position that the withdrawal of Russian troops is a condition for peace talks.

Up to 13,000 dead

In Kyiv, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said between 10,000 and 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the start of the Russian invasion. On Wednesday, commission chairman Ursula von der Leyen caused a stir when she said about 100,000 Ukrainians had died, although she recovered quickly, saying she was referring to the total number of those killed and wounded.

In addition, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said via Facebook that Ukraine’s embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia and Italy, as well as its consulates in Naples, Krakow and Brno, received “bloody packages” with animal eyes. “We are studying the meaning of this message,” the Ukrainian official said.