Kremlin says because there are no signals about peace talks from Ukraine, Russia continues 'special military operation'

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that because there are no signals from Ukraine about peace talks, Russia continues its "special military operation."

Peskov noted a decree signed by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year prohibiting Kyiv to hold peace talks with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin serves as the Russian president.

"So far, to be honest, probably no one can state any signals from the Ukrainian side, while we proceed from the impossibility de jure for the Ukrainian side to negotiate," he said at a news conference in Moscow.

Peskov added that "new realities" also have to be taken into account and the goals of the "special military operation" -- denazification and demilitarization -- achieved.

"Of course, with a favorable state of affairs and with the appropriate attitude of the Ukrainian regime, this can be resolved at the negotiating table.

"But in this case, the main thing is to achieve our goals, this is our absolute priority," he said.

Regarding US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to Central Asia, Peskov said: "We have our own bilateral relations with Central Asian countries, we have our own formats of interaction."

"We are united by the integration processes of the Eurasian Economic Union, which is what we focus on, what we are interested in and what we consider our main foreign policy priority," he said.