The Kremlin sent Trump a bad news, at a time when he is increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress of peace negotiations
Dmitri Peskov with Vladimir Putin, photo: Willwest News / Profimedia Images
President Vladimir Putin wants peace in Ukraine, and Russian officials work intensely with the United States in this regard, but the conflict is so complicated that Washington's rapid progress is difficult, Kremlin said on Wednesday.
“The president remains open to the political and diplomatic methods of resolving this conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Wednesday, referring to Vladimir Putin.
However, Peskov warned that Russia's goals must be achieved and that Moscow's preference is to achieve these objectives peacefully.
He mentioned that Putin expressed his desire to carry out direct discussions with Ukraine, but that there was still no answer from Kiev.
“Unfortunately, I did not hear any statement in this context from Kiev. So we do not know if Kiev is ready or not,” Peskov said on Wednesday.
Trump and Putin have different calendars
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to end the over three-year war in Ukraine and has expressed his desire to do this as soon as possible-for now.
“We understand that Washington wants to achieve quick success in this process,” Peskov said in English.
But Tass quoted Peskov saying that Ukraine's deep causes are too complex to be resolved in a single day.
Trump said on Tuesday that he believes that Putin wants to stop the war in Ukraine. He also said that if he were not, Russia would have captured the whole of Ukraine.
“If it wasn't me, I think he wanted to take over the whole country,” Trump said. The US President refused to say if the United States would stop military aid granted to Ukraine if Washington gave up negotiations.
The fears of Europeans
The variant for the US to withdraw from the negotiations for the end of the war has begun to be discussed more and more intensely in recent weeks. According to the Financial Times, European and Ukrainian officials have become increasingly convinced that Trump is prepared to take advantage of any kind of progress this week and to announce such withdrawal.
The interlocutors of the British daily have added that the complexity of the conflict and the refusal of Vladimir Putin to accept the key requests of the US and Ukraine, such as maintaining a post-war Ukrainian force, made Trump re-evaluated a peace agreement.
On Monday, the Russian president offered a three-day armistice on May 8-10, when Russia celebrates Soviet victory in World War II-but it remains to be seen whether the cessation of fire will work.
The Kremlin, however, rejected the proposal of the President of Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodimir Zelenski, to declare a 30 -day armistice.
Russia, writes Reuters, did not respect its previous promises to interrupt the hostilities during the Easter and did not respect the armistice on energy infrastructure.
Maximalist conditions
On Monday, Russia has even tightened its conditions, the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow considers the “international recognition” of his control over five Ukrainian regions as an “imperative” for any agreement.
US officials “have started to be worried that they are not coming back with anything with Russia” and have started to present ideas for an agreement that could fit into Trump's fast calendar, an informed person said.
But Trump's pressure for a rapid closing of the war was hit by Putin's intransigence to accept terms that do not meet his maximalist requirements, such as “denazing” Ukraine.
