Hommam Al Nassim 
Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, said that Russia is ready to negotiate with Ukraine provided that there are legitimate partners who really want to negotiate.
Speaking to Novosti Agency on the sidelines of the Petersburg International Economic Forum, Slutsky indicated that Russia had previously entered into negotiations with Ukraine but found that the Ukrainian side was using these negotiations as an excuse to buy time and obtain lethal weapons from Western countries.
Slutsky stated: “Therefore, everything we agreed on, including regarding freedom from provisions that clearly included Nazi ideology or the Ukrainian Heroes and Disarmament Law, was empty. We deceived the Ukrainian side, while we believed that they were conducting real negotiations with us.”
Slutsky explained that “the agreements reached in Istanbul were violated by the Ukrainian side, as happened with the Minsk agreements and other previous agreements.”
In previous statements, Moscow repeatedly confirmed its readiness to negotiate with Ukraine, but Kiev imposed a legislative ban on conducting any negotiations with Russia, which complicates the situation and prevents any diplomatic progress from being achieved.
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