From the Financial Times:
Putin calls for negotiations on statehood for southeast Ukraine
Vladimir Putin has called for negotiations on the “statehood” of southeast Ukraine, sharply raising the stakes in his stand-off with the west as Europe prepares to impose tougher sanctions against Moscow.The comments by the Russian president are the latest escalation in rhetoric from the Kremlin amid an intensification of fighting in eastern Ukraine that Kiev and western governments say is being fuelled by an inflow of Russian soldiers and equipment.
“We must immediately begin substantive, meaningful negotiations, not on technical questions but on questions of the political structure of society and of the statehood of southeast Ukraine in order to guarantee the legal interests of people who live there,” Mr Putin said in a TV interview....MUCH MORE
