Vladimir Putin could use any peace talks with Ukraine as an justification to rearm and recruit Russian troops, the foreign secretary has warned.

James Cleverly instructed Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday that negotiations want to be “actual” and “significant”.

The Russian president stated on Friday that Moscow might have to strike a deal with Ukraine to finish the war it commenced in February.

It was one of the 1st occasions he has spoken publicly about a likely peace arrangement.

Mr Cleverly instructed Mr Putin could use conversations as a include.

“Negotiations have to have to be serious, they will need to be significant,” he advised Sky Information.

“They can’t just be a fig leaf for Russian rearmament and even more recruitment of troopers, regardless of whether that be from the Wagner Team or trawling prisons in Russia.”

Mr Cleverly said the written content of peace talks and the threshold that may be met to provide peace “has obtained to be decided by the Ukrainian persons, the Ukrainian president”.

“They’re the types whose sons and daughters are being killed in this,” he stated.

He was sceptical, on the other hand, about regardless of whether serious peace talks would consider put.

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“I am not definitely looking at everything coming from the Russian side that provides me assurance that Vladimir Putin is entering these talks in good religion,” Mr Cleverly stated.

“The wider rhetoric is nonetheless quite confrontational.”

The sticking place involving Russia and Ukraine is most likely to be above Crimea and other Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

In recent months, Ukraine has regained manage of considerable parts of occupied territory in the east, when Russia most lately ceded ground in the southern metropolis of Kherson.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has constantly explained Russia should go away all occupied territories right before peace talks can begin.

This consists of Crimea, which Russia annexed during an unlawful invasion in 2014.

Russia also annexed the locations of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia just after referendums in September that the West labelled a “sham”.

Previous month, Mr Putin demanded the West have to formally recognise the 4 areas just before peace talks can go ahead.

On Friday, he also admitted that there had been some troubles procuring products and outfits for the hundreds of hundreds of conscripts termed up to struggle in Ukraine.