Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Moscow and Washington have stressed the importance of maintaining communication on the issue of nuclear arms. The two countries are by far the world’s largest nuclear powers with an estimated 11,000 nuclear warheads between them.

“Russia is open to dialogue on ensuring strategic stability, preserving non-proliferation regimes for weapons of mass destruction and improving the situation in the field of arms control,” Putin said in remarks to a legal forum in his home city of St Petersburg.

He said the efforts would require “painstaking joint work” and would go towards preventing a repeat of “what is happening today in the Donbas.”

The Russian leader says Moscow invaded Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the eastern Donbas region from persecution from Kyiv. He repeated those claims today, accusing Ukraine of “crimes against humanity.”

Ukraine and the West say Russia’s invasion of its neighbour was an unprovoked act of aggression, aimed at seizing Ukrainian territory and toppling President Volodymyr Zelensky.