Putin claims Ukraine is dragging out negotiations

Russia's President accused Ukraine at the end of the week of dragging out negotiations by tabling unrealistic proposals.

According to the Financial Times, Vladimir Putin told the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, thay Kyiv was "trying to drag out the negotiation process by putting forward new unrealistic proposals."

In the same call with Scholz, which was conducted on Friday morning, Putin claimed that Moscow was "ready to propose a search for solutions in line with its well-known principled approaches" during the fourth round of talks.

People briefed on the state of negotiations said that "significant" progress had been made, including on a Russian ceasefire and withdrawal, in exchange for Kyiv declaring its neutrality, the FT added.

Nevertheless, Ukraine and its western allies were concerned that Russia might not be negotiating in good faith and might instead just be buying time to resupply its military.

Putin also said that the west was turning a blind eye to Ukrainian "war crimes" and that the Russian military was doing everything possible to protect the lives of civilians.