Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said that an African initiative could be a basis for peace in Ukraine but that Ukrainian attacks made it hard to realise.

Putin was speaking at a press conference after meeting African leaders in St Petersburg.

“There are provisions of this peace initiative that are being implemented,” Putin said. “But there are things that are difficult or impossible to implement.”

The Russian President said that one of the points in the initiative was a ceasefire “but the Ukrainian army is on the offensive, they are attacking, they are implementing a large-scale strategic offensive operation… We cannot cease fire when we are under attack.”

On the question of starting peace talks, Putin said, “We did not reject them… In order for this process to begin, there needs to be agreement on both sides.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected the idea of a ceasefire now that would leave Russia in control of nearly a fifth of his country.