Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an occasion through video on Wednesday. The Kremlin is downplaying the prospect of Ukraine peace talks after President Biden mentioned he would communicate to Putin if “he’s looking for a way to end the war.”

Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP through Getty Images

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Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP through Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an occasion through video on Wednesday. The Kremlin is downplaying the prospect of Ukraine peace talks after President Biden mentioned he would communicate to Putin if “he’s looking for a way to end the war.”

Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP through Getty Images

MOSCOW — The Kremlin dismissed the thought of talks with President Biden to finish the conflict in Ukraine on Friday, and defended its repeated assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure as “inevitable.”

On Thursday, Biden said he would be willing to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin “if in fact there is an interest in him deciding that he’s looking for a way to end the war.”

Asked about these feedback on the White House, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin stays open to negotiations, as long as they assist safe Russia’s “national interests.”

But Peskov famous Biden’s demand that Putin “pull out of Ukraine” made talks unlikely.

“The U.S. still doesn’t recognize new territories of the Russian Federation,” Peskov mentioned, in a reference to 4 areas of Ukraine the Kremlin illegally annexed to worldwide condemnation in September. “That complicates the search for grounds on which to hold mutual discussion.”

The rejection of talks with Washington got here as Putin offered a forceful protection of his actions in Ukraine in a telephone name with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

According to a Kremlin readout of the decision, Putin mentioned the West is pursuing “destructive” insurance policies in Ukraine by means of its monetary and army help, which “leads to the fact that Kyiv has dismissed the idea of any negotiations.”

Putin defended weeks of assaults on Ukraine’s power infrastructure as a logical response to Ukrainian assaults on Russia — including a key bridge linking the Russian mainland to the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

The Russian strikes in Ukraine left millions of Ukrainians with out energy, warmth and operating water because the chilly climate was setting in. Western nations joined Kyiv in accusing Moscow of making an attempt to “weaponize winter” — a cost Putin has rejected.

“It was noted that the Russian Armed Forces had long refrained from precision missile strikes against certain targets on the territory of Ukraine,” mentioned the Kremlin readout of Putin’s name with the German chancellor.

“But now such measures have become a forced and inevitable response to Kyiv’s provocative attacks on Russia’s civilian infrastructure,” it mentioned.