Keep knowledgeable with free updates
Merely signal as much as the Struggle in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.
Russia doesn’t need a non permanent ceasefire in Ukraine and is pushing for a long-term peace settlement that can keep in mind its pursuits and issues, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has mentioned.
Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s international coverage adviser, instructed state tv on Thursday that the 30-day ceasefire proposed after talks between the US and Ukraine this week was “nothing aside from a short lived breather for Ukrainian troops”.
“No person wants steps that imitate peaceable actions on this state of affairs,” Ushakov mentioned, including that Moscow “hopes [the US] is aware of our place and desires to consider that they’ll take it under consideration as we work collectively going ahead”.
Russia’s rejection of the US proposal aligned with Putin’s hardline stance forward of high-level talks afterward Thursday in Moscow, the place a aircraft linked to Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s particular envoy to the Center East, has landed.
These calls for would in impact finish Ukraine’s existence as a functioning state and place it squarely in Russia’s orbit whereas severely limiting Nato’s presence east of Germany.
Ushakov mentioned Witkoff, who spoke to Putin final month because the US started extraordinary makes an attempt at a rapprochement with Russia, wouldn’t be the White Home’s predominant envoy to Moscow.
The Russian adviser mentioned Washington and Moscow had agreed that any future contacts can be “of a closed nature” and declined to call the envoy.
He mentioned he instructed US nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz a day earlier that Russia’s objective was “a long-term peace settlement that takes under consideration . . . our well-known issues”.
Putin has demanded that Ukraine recognise Russia’s annexation of 4 partially occupied south-eastern areas and the Crimean peninsula, withdraw its troops from these areas and pledge to by no means be part of Nato as preconditions for the ceasefire.
Russia can also be pushing for caps on Ukraine’s army, protections for Russian audio system within the nation and recent elections to interchange President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It has demanded an efficient rollback of Nato’s eastward enlargement for the reason that chilly warfare, which Putin has claimed compelled him to order his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Whereas the Trump administration has dominated out Ukraine becoming a member of Nato and has additionally mentioned it desires Kyiv to carry recent elections, it has threatened Russia with future sanctions if Putin doesn’t make concessions.
The US restored army assist and intelligence sharing to Ukraine earlier this week after senior officers held talks in Saudi Arabia over Trump’s ceasefire proposal.
Trump then mentioned Moscow wanted to conform to a pause, warning that he might “do issues financially that may be very dangerous for Russia”.
“Hopefully we are able to get a ceasefire from Russia,” Trump mentioned after assembly Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday. “I’ve gotten some constructive messages, however a constructive message means nothing. This can be a very critical state of affairs.”
