If Ukraine wants to talk to Russia about ending the war, Kiev must send a signal that Moscow has not yet received. This is the message that Russian President Vladimir Putin sent from Sochi, where he met his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. The pair launched into a series of metaphors about dancing and Ukraine after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it “takes two to tango” to begin negotiations.
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“Tango is a beautiful dance, but Ukrainians must not forget how to dance Gopak. Otherwise they dance to other people’s music,” Putin replied, referring to a traditional Ukrainian dance. And he reiterated that he was open to dialogue with Kiev, but there was no signal from the other side.
“The Americans don’t know how to tango,” Putin continued, quoted by Tass, accusing Washington of wanting to “solve all problems from a position of strength” with sanctions and the threat of violence. “They want to teach others the steps, but they don’t know them and don’t want to learn them,” he said again.
“I have already said that we never refuse to talk. If the other side is available, let them say it openly… nothing has been heard from the other side,” Putin said. For his part, Lukashenko reiterated the Russian narrative that the United States would not allow Kiev to negotiate. “The dance had begun,” he said, referring to talks in Belarus immediately after the invasion, but then the United States “gave instructions” to the Ukrainian president. Zelensky and “banned all conversations.”
Meanwhile, Putin said cluster munitions would be “used as widely as possible” by the Ukrainian army. The Kremlin’s No. 1 noted that Washington considers the use of such ammunition a crime, but at the same time “feels free to do so, and this is the main problem of today’s international relations.”
The issue of cluster munitions, Putin added, “perfectly reflects what is happening in the world as a whole: there is one country that considers it exceptional – the United States. Even what they consider a crime, they take the liberty to commit it. In this case, the United States is using Ukrainian-made cluster munitions.”