Debunking a widely held assumption, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to China to attend the SCO summit that Russia has “no objection” to Ukraine joining the EU on September 2.

However, he repeated that the Kremlin does object to Ukraine joining Nato, which remains a red line for Moscow since the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an eight-point list of demands in December 2021 in the prelude to the invasion of Ukraine three months later.

Moscow has long said that it has no problem with Ukraine’s desire to become a member of the European trade club and sees it as a business deal. However, the Kremlin has always said that if Ukraine were to join there would need to be a three-way discussion including Moscow, Brussels and Kyiv as Russia and Ukraine had significant mutual trade. The Kremlin was afraid of EU goods entering the Russia market via Ukraine, which had open borders and a free trade agreement pre-war, undermining Russia’s trade policies. Both Kyiv and Brussels refused three-way talks which was the start of tensions between them.

Putin repeated that Moscow does not oppose Ukraine’s possible accession to the European Union during his trip to China this week, while reiterating that Nato membership for Kyiv remains unacceptable to the Kremlin. Speaking during a visit to China, Putin also signalled a willingness to cooperate with the US on restarting the Cold War-era missile deals that he discussed with US President Donald Trump during the recent Alaska summit on August 15.

“As for Ukraine’s membership of the EU, we have never objected to this,” Putin told Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico during bilateral talks. “As for Nato, this is another issue... Our position here is well known: we consider this unacceptable for ourselves.”

Putin’s comments come as Ukraine’s Western allies attempt to thrash out security guarantees and an aid package as part of the US sponsored drive to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has called for bilateral and trilateral meetings between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and himself, but progress towards such a meeting is currently stalled. Ukraine’s European allies are due to have another meeting of the coalition of the willing in Paris on September 4 to continue the discussion, however, the Trump administration has already said it will not attend that meeting.

“There are options for ensuring Ukraine’s security in the event of an end to the conflict,” Putin told Fico, referencing his meeting with Trump in Alaska. “And it seems to me that there is an opportunity to find consensus here.”

Trump, speaking after the summit, said he believed Putin was “tired” of the war and told a US radio station over the weekend that he was “disappointed” with Putin, hinting at new harsh sanctions on Russia if a Zelenskiy meeting doesn’t happen soon. However, Trump has repeatedly threatened Russia with new sanctions since he took office and so far has imposed no new sanctions whatsoever.

Ukraine and its Western allies are becoming increasingly sceptical about Putin’s commitment to a negotiated resolution and accuse the Kremlin of suggesting concessions and meetings as a ruse to delay possible new sanctions on Russia by the US. Ukrainian officials argue that Moscow cannot dictate Kyiv’s foreign policy, and Nato has reaffirmed that Russia has no veto over the alliance’s enlargement, although the Trump administration has made it clear that Nato membership is off the table for Ukraine. In lieu of full membership Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has suggested a Nato-lite variant of Article 5-like security guarantees by individual EM member states that is currently under discussion.

Putin said reaching consensus on security guarantees for Ukraine was possible, even as he reiterated Moscow would never accept Kyiv’s accession into NATO. However, the  Kremlin has been ambivalent on Meloni’s Nato-lite suggestion, hinting it would accept bi-lateral security guarantees by individual European powers. This sort of agreement on security deals was already reached at as part of the failed 2022 Istanbul peace deal. The Kremlin has repeatedly suggested that those talks should be used as a framework for the current security arrangement negotiations.

However, the Kremlin has made  it clear it must be part of any bilateral agreements on Ukraine’s security. Putin has rejected the US-sponsored idea of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, floated by the White House in February and prefers to start talks on a longer-term peace plan that deals with the “root causes” of the conflict. Part of that would be to include Russia in any pan-European security deal, rather than excluding it, as Ukraine’s Nato membership entails.

“There are options for ensuring Ukraine’s security if the conflict ends,” Putin told Fico, Reuters reports. “It seems to me that there is an opportunity to find a consensus here,” adding that the topic came up in discussions with US President Donald Trump when the two leaders met in Alaska.

In an apparent attempt to allay Western concerns, Putin dismissed warnings of further Russian aggression as “horror stories” and “hysteria” promoted by “incompetent people seeking to cast Russia as an enemy”.

“Hysteria is constantly being whipped up that Russia is supposedly planning to attack Europe,” he said. “This is a provocation or complete incompetence.”

British and German intelligence have warned that Russia may be contemplating an attack on Nato members sometime in the next five years, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has always dismissed the idea. “We are not crazy,” he commented early in the war when the idea was first floated.

On nuclear safety, Putin said Russia was open to working with US authorities at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, under Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) control since March 2022.

“We can cooperate with American partners at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” he said, noting that discussions had already taken place indirectly with Washington. He added that Moscow was also prepared to engage with Ukraine on the issue.