Feb. 21 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Russia’s security council on Monday to address the latest developments about Ukraine, and said that he’s considering pleas by separatists in breakaway regions of Ukraine to be recognized as independent.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the security council meeting was unplanned.
“The purpose of today’s meeting is to listen to colleagues and to determine our further steps in this direction, including the appeal from the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic to Russia seeking recognition of their sovereignty,” Putin said, according to CNN.
The United States has said that such a move would violate a seven-year peace deal known as the Minsk agreement.
Putin also said during the meeting that Russia’s priority is peace, but noted that allowing Ukraine to join NATO would be a security threat to his country.
“At the end of last year, we stepped up our efforts with our main partners in Washington and NATO to finally agree security measures and to ensure the peaceful development of our country. This is our priority, not a confrontation,” he said, according to CNN.
Earlier Monday, Peskov said that reports about a new round of talks between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden on the Ukraine crisis were “premature.”
For months, Moscow has been building up troops near its border with Ukraine and has sought assurances from the West on certain security issues, including Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO, which Russia opposes.
Peskov’s remarks came after French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that Biden and Putin have agreed in principle to meet for a summit and seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
The White House had said a meeting could take place on the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine.
“It’s premature to talk about any specific plans for organizing any kind of summits,” Peskov said, according to The Moscow Times.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that Kiev, and possibly other allies, should be part of discussions to resolve the crisis.
“The most suitable format for the discussion regarding de-escalation and forming new guarantees of security would be a summit in the following format: five permanent U.N. Security Council members, plus Ukraine, Germany and Turkey,” he said, according to CNN.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov are scheduled to meet on Thursday, the White House said.
Moscow on Monday also denied reports that said Russian officials have created a list of potential targets in Ukraine that would follow an invasion.
U.S. officials noted the “kill list” in a letter to United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet and cited “credible information” about a list of people whom Russian forces should kill or detain if they attack Ukraine.
The letter was reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The targets on the “kill list,” the letter says, would likely include dissident Russian opposition leaders and anti-corruption activists living in Ukraine, along with journalists, religious minorities and LGBTQ members.
“We are deeply concerned about Russia’s continuing human rights abuses in the parts of Ukraine it already occupies and has every reason to believe those concerns will multiply following a new military offensive,” the letter states.
At the news conference on Monday, Peskov strongly denied the existence of such a letter.
