Putin 'ready' to send delegation to Minsk for talks with Ukraine: Kremlin

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to send a delegation to Minsk for talks with Ukraine, the Kremlin announced on Friday.

"In response to the proposal of (President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy), Vladimir Putin is ready to send a Russian delegation to Minsk at the level of representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Administration for talks with the Ukrainian delegation," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a day after Moscow launched a military intervention in Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin spokesman, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko promised that Minsk would be ready to create "all the necessary conditions for the negotiation process of the Russian Federation and Ukraine."

Tensions started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine.

They claimed Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbor, claims consistently rejected by Moscow.

Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow earlier this week officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, followed by the start of a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday.

Putin said the operation aims to protect people "subjected to genocide" by Kyiv and to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, while calling on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms.