Moscow's reaction to Donald Trump's threats. “There are several signs that we are going in the right direction.”
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, assured Moscow on Thursday that Moscow is prepared for an agreement to put an end to the Ukraine war, after Donald Trump's warning to Vladimir Putin following the deadly attacks on Kiev, AFP reports.
The attack of Russia from Wednesday night to Thursday, during which 70 rockets and 145 drones targeted a total of six regions and made 12 dead in Kiev, according to Ukrainian authorities, intervened at a time when the laborious negotiations undertaken by the US President Donald Trump warms up on the problem of the Crimea peninsula in 2014.
The White House leader “talks about an agreement and we are ready to conclude an agreement, but certain specific elements must still be set up,” Lavrov said in an interview broadcast on Thursday night by the American CBS post.
“There are several signs that we are going in the right direction,” said the head of Russian diplomacy, praising Donald Trump as “probably the only leader on the planet who recognizes the need to address the profound causes of the situation.”
“Compromed” with Russia
The US president said this week that he is “very close” to a compromise with Russia to end the war triggered by the large -scale invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.
He attributed the responsibility for the current blockage of the negotiations of the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelenski and the information disclosed by American officials suggests major concessions from Kiev.
But the latest fatal bombings have led him to give up the very conciliatory tone adopted lately against Vladimir Putin.
“Vladimir, stop!”, Donald Trump wrote on the Sa Social Truth platform, adding that he is not “satisfied” by these “very poorly synchronized” blows.
North Korean rocket used in Kiev's attack, Zelenski accuses
While the Russian army said he “launched a massive attack with long-range precision weapons” against several companies related to the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, Lavrov insisted that the Russian forces target “only military objectives or civil places used by the army.”
The balance sheet only in the Ukrainian capital is one of the hardest in recent months.
In the west of Kiev, AFP journalists saw bodies lying on the floor, damaged and carbonized buildings, and rescue teams looking for possible victims or survivors.
Volodimir Zelenski, who shortened his visit to South Africa, accused Russia of using a rocket “manufactured in North Korea” during these attacks.
Russians intensified their terrestrial attacks
He also stated that the Russian army tried to take advantage of these massive air bombings to intensify its terrestrial offensive.
“While the bulk of our forces focused on the protection against rockets and drones, the Russians have greatly intensified their terrestrial attacks,” he said on Telegram, adding that this assault was rejected.
The wave of rockets and explosive drones launched by Russia occurs at a critical moment for the negotiation process initiated by Donald Trump to put an end to the war triggered by Moscow in February 2022, which resulted in at least tens of thousands of deaths on both sides.
US emissary Steve Witkoff is expected in Moscow by the end of the week, while Donald Trump and Volodimir Zelenski will be present at Pope Francis's funerals on Saturday.
The press reported on Russian-American discussions on the recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula whose control was taken over by Moscow in 2014.
Zelenski asks for more pressure on Russia
Without explicitly recognizing this, Trump considered this week that the territory is “lost” for Ukraine, while his vice -president, JD Vance, suggested “freezing territorial lines at a level close to the current one.”
Zelenski returned to the subject on Thursday, before leaving the Pretoria: “We do everything our partners have proposed, except for what is contrary to the” Ukrainian legislation and Constitution, including Crimea, he stressed, asking, on the contrary, “more pressure on Russia.”
In this regard, Donald Trump gave assurances on Thursday in front of the press that the United States exerts “strong pressure” on Russia to put an end to the war, adding that Moscow will do “a big concession”, accepting not to occupy the whole country.
Received by Donald Trump, the head of NATO, Mark Rutte, seemed to contradict the statements of the US president who accused Kiev of preventing peace negotiations.
“I think there is something on the table now, and the Ukrainians really play the game. And I think the ball is clear in Russia's field now,” Rutte told Washington. “In the last days, huge steps have been taken.”
