Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday that addressing NATO’s eastward expansion is vital for achieving lasting peace in Ukraine. His comments came after discussions with China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Tianjin.
Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 followed eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. Russia now controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine. While Ukraine and Western European countries see the invasion as a land grab, Putin describes it as a stand against a declining West, which he believes humiliated Russia by expanding NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
At the SCO summit, Putin said the West attempted to bring Ukraine into its sphere of influence and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance. He stressed that for any Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and lasting, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed. This involves restoring a fair balance in security, referring to Russia’s demands concerning European security and NATO.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. In 2019, Ukraine amended its constitution to commit to full membership in NATO and the European Union. A May Reuters report noted that one of Putin’s conditions for ending the war is a written pledge from Western leaders to stop NATO’s eastward expansion and to lift some sanctions on Russia.
Putin also mentioned that understandings made with U.S. President Donald Trump at a summit in Alaska in August created a path to peace, and he plans to discuss these with leaders at the regional summit. He stated, “We highly appreciate the efforts and proposals from China and India aimed at resolving the Ukrainian crisis.” He added that the outcomes of his talks with Trump would help this goal and that he had shared details of his discussions with both Xi and Modi. China and India are the largest purchasers of Russian crude, which is essential for Russia’s war economy. Trump has placed additional tariffs on India for these purchases, but neither country has indicated they will stop.
