MOSCOW

Russian on Thursday thanked Türkiye for providing a platform for peace talks with Ukraine.

Any negotiation format is relevant provided it involves discussion of political or diplomatic ways to resolve a conflict or humanitarian aspects that would lead to tangible outcomes, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing in Moscow.

"We always value initiatives coming from countries offering their venues for the negotiation process or developing their mechanisms, models, concepts on how this could be done," she said. Türkiye has repeatedly offered to host negotiations, and is one of the few countries that has actually done so during the course of the ongoing war, now in its fourth year.

Despite Ukraine’s negative attitude, Moscow has always engaged in contacts for the sake of people, for the sake of solving humanitarian problems, for the sake of moving towards peace, she said.

"However, we observe that the Istanbul rounds were sabotaged by the Kyiv regime. You see that all our latest round proposals have stalled on their side. Once again declaring their intentions, they did exactly the opposite. Or, to put it better, they did nothing at all," she said.

She added: "We always express our appreciation. In this particular case, we are grateful to the Turkish side for their hospitality and willingness to offer their venue for Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. We did not reject this format. It was the Kyiv regime that did.”

Zakharova said that since July, Ukraine has put the negotiations on pause, failing to respond to Russia's proposals, including the formation of three working groups – on political, military, and humanitarian issues.

"They haven't responded to the proposal of raising the delegation level either," she said.