Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's efforts to end the war in Ukraine, but said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not prepared to hold peace talks.
Speaking at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan, Putin said Erdoğan was always proposing meetings with Zelensky - although he had not done so at their meeting this time in Samarkand - and that the Turkish leader had made a "significant contribution" to attempts to end the conflict.
Putin accused the West of wanting to break up Russia, and said that he had sent Russia's armed forces into Ukraine in February in order to prevent this.
Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and discussing the war publicly for the first time since Ukraine routed Russian troops in the Kharkiv region last week, Putin threatened strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, and said: "We will see how (Ukraine's counteroffensive) ends."
Putin denied his country had anything to do with the energy crisis in Europe, and said that if European Union countries wanted more gas, they should ask Ukraine to open gas pipelines, and lift sanctions preventing the opening of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic pipeline.
Putin blamed what he called "the green agenda" for the energy crisis, and insisted that Russia would fulfil its energy obligations.
Russia has cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland because they refused to pay in roubles rather than the currency of the contract.
It has also shut down the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which takes gas to Germany and other European customers, arguing that Western sanctions are preventing vital repairs.
Western customers reject this justification as a spurious pretext for economic retaliation against countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia.
Putin said on Friday that Russia was not in a hurry to finish its "special military operation" in Ukraine and that it was gradually taking control of Ukrainian territory.
Putin was speaking to reporters at the conclusion of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Putin said on Friday that his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping the previous day at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan had been "normal".
Speaking to reporters after the summit, Putin said he had discussed measures to boost Russia-China trade during his meeting with Xi, whose "concerns" about the war in Ukraine Putin publicly acknowledged for the first time during the session.
