A senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin threw cold water on a ceasefire overture that U.S. Special Envoy Steven Witkoff brought to Moscow on Thursday even before U.S. President Donald Trump’s negotiator got out of his plane.
“It seems to me that no one needs any steps that imitate peaceful actions in this situation,” Yuri Ushakov said, adding that this was his personal opinion. A former Russian ambassador to Washington from Putin’s first term, Ushakov has long been seen as a hard-liner with close ties to the Russian president.
At the same time, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs, said her country is open to talks, beginning as soon as Thursday, coinciding with the visit of America’s special envoy.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz met with senior Ukrainian officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and extracted an agreement for a 30-day ceasefire in exchange for a resumption of intelligence-sharing and supply of arms.
The deal would also have allowed for an exchange of prisoners and the opening of corridors during a pause in fighting to deliver humanitarian relief to civilians in hot zones of the conflict.
President Trump has indicated his desire to reach a peace agreement over Ukraine quickly, but unsurprising the Russians — who are making gains on the ground both in Ukraine and their own province of Kursk where Ukrainians have captured territory last year — are saying ‘not so fast.’
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov warned about “getting ahead of things” when asked about the U.S. ceasefire proposal.
“Any agreements – with all the understanding of the need for compromise – on our terms, not American. And this is not boasting, but understanding that real agreements are still being written there, at the front. Which they should understand in Washington, too,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international relations committee in Russia’s Duma, or parliament, said earlier in the week, predicting what sounds like it may be a chilly response to the U.S. proposal.
To date, Russian demands have included a commitment that no foreign troops will be based in Ukraine, that its territorial gains of Crimea — which it annexed in 2014 — and four Ukrainian provinces remain under its domain, and Ukraine does not accede to the NATO security alliance.
Sources close to the White House have indicated Trump would like to meet Putin as soon as the Russian Orthodox Easter, which falls in six weeks, to reach a broader agreement for ending the war.
Witkoff is scheduled to meet with Putin later today to discuss specifics, which Russian officials have expressed interest in hearing more about.
i see nothing but virtue signaling and a puppet show. the illiusion that we sought peace before we go all in…. russia has no reason to negotioate, they are winning, its not a stalemate.. it will start with europe sending peace keepers and escalate from their. … watch all the illegals will take the jobs of citizens that get drafted… europe and the u.s. both have designed immigration crisis…. we r screwed folks. actions not words. connect the dots. actions tell the true story….