Kremlin: Putin and Erdogan may meet to discuss Russia-West talks

President Vladimir Putin could meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan this week to discuss Turkey’s proposal to host talks between Russia and the West on Ukraine, a Kremlin spokesman said on Monday amid increasing violence in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will both travel this week to Kazakhstan for a meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of State and the leaders may hold a meeting on the sidelines of the main events, Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov told reporters at a press briefing in Moscow.

Peskov said that Russia had not received any signals from the Western countries about the prospect of negotiations in Turkey, but did not rule out that Putin could discuss this with Erdogan.

"We haven’t received anything. There are no specifics on the matter," he said.

But the spokesman downplayed the imminence of talks saying: "There is a need to figure out what the goal of such a meeting will be, what the result of the meeting could be and whom it could involve, before speculating about the possibility of talks.”

Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper reported on October 7 that Turkey planned to arrange Russia’s talks on Ukraine with four Western powers (the UK, Germany, the US and France) but there has been no official confirmation of the report.

Meanwhile tensions rose between Russia and Ukraine after an explosion shattered a Russian-built bridge to Crimea. Russia launched its most widespread air strikes since the start of the Ukraine war on Monday, raining cruise missiles on busy cities during rush hour and knocking out power and heat, in what President Vladimir Putin called revenge for a blown up bridge.