Moscow does not refuse to negotiate with Kiev and expects to reach agreements on the diplomatic track, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, TASS reported.

His remarks came at a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday.

"Despite the fact that a military operation is underway, we nevertheless still count on the fact that we will be able to reach agreements on the diplomatic track as well - we are negotiating, we are not giving up on them," the Russian leader said.

According to him, Ukraine proposes to consider the situation with the territories of Crimea and Donbas immediately at the level of the two heads of state, but these issues cannot be resolved without preliminary discussions. At the same time, Moscow does not agree to sign security agreements without resolving these issues.

The Russian leader pointed out that after the events in Bucha, Ukrainian negotiators "withdrew from their previous intentions to take the issues of security guarantees and the territory of Crimea, Sevastopol and Donbas out of the equation."  "They simply abandoned that. And in their draft agreement on this matter, presented to us, they simply indicated in two articles that these issues should be resolved at a meeting of heads of state. But it is clear to us that these issues - if we take them to the level of heads of state without first resolving them at least within the framework of the draft agreement - it is clear to us that they will never be resolved," Putin said.

"In this case, we simply cannot sign the security guarantees without resolving the territorial issues concerning Crimea, Sevastopol, and Donbas," he added.