Putin was speaking in Tianjin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, where he met Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n
He thanked the Chinese and Indian leaders for their support and their efforts to “facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”.<\/p>\n
China and India are the biggest buyers of Russian crude oil, attracting criticism from the West that they are propping up the Russian economy which has been battered by the war effort.<\/p>\n
In his speech, Putin also said that the “understandings reached” at his meeting with Trump in Alaska are “I hope, moving in this direction, opening the way to peace in Ukraine”.<\/p>\n
At the same time, he reiterated his view that “this crisis wasn’t triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West”.<\/p>\n
He also attributed the war to “the West’s constant attempts to drag Ukraine into Nato”.<\/p>\n
The Russian president has consistently opposed the idea of Ukraine joining the Western military alliance.<\/p>\n
It was in 2014 that Putin seized Crimea and Russian proxies grabbed part of eastern Ukraine. Years later, in February 2022, Putin then ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/a><\/p>\n Putin’s latest comments come days after Russia launched its second biggest aerial attack <\/a>on Ukraine in the war.<\/p>\n On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Putin faced a Monday deadline set by Trump to agree to peace talks with Zelensky. <\/p>\n If the Russian leader does not agree, “it will show again President Putin has played President Trump”, said Macron.<\/p>\n But in an interview with CNN, on 22 August, Trump himself again gave Putin “a couple of weeks” to give a response before the US takes action, in the latest of a series of ultimatums and deadlines he has issued to the Russian leader. <\/p>\n Trump had previously said he could solve the Ukraine war in one day.<\/p>\n Following his meeting with Putin last month, Trump dropped a demand for a ceasefire and called instead for a permanent peace deal.<\/p>\n He also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky along with top European leaders who paid an urgent visit to Washington DC. <\/p>\n Trump insisted there would be “no going into Nato by Ukraine” as part of a peace deal.<\/p>\n But he also hinted there would be security guarantees, saying Europe was the “first line of defence” and that the US would be involved. <\/p>\n “We’ll give them good protection,” he said, though he clarified it would not mean sending US troops to Ukraine.<\/p>\n