Putin’s second day in China
Ukraine: Kremlin to Zelensky, we need to understand what he means
To comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s openness to Moscow’s participation in an upcoming peace summit in Ukraine, the Kremlin needs to “understand what he meant.” As President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained, “the first peace summit was not a peace summit at all, so we need to understand what he means first.” He was referring to last month’s meeting in Switzerland, without Russia.
The Kremlin’s response was cautious to the first opening to peace talks by the Kiev leader since shortly after the start of the war, when there were attempts at contact. In his statements yesterday, Zelensky announced his intention to present a plan for “a just peace” in November, the very month in which the presidential elections will take place in the United States, in addition to calling for a new summit on peace in Ukraine, this time also attended by Moscow.
“I think that Russian representatives should attend this second summit,” he noted. Two years and four months after the start of the offensive in Ukraine, Moscow controls almost 20% of the territory and the prospects of a ceasefire, or even lasting peace between Kiev and Moscow, remain minimal at this stage. However, this is the first time since the collapse of talks in the spring of 2022, following the Russian assault in February, that the Ukrainian president is considering discussing with Russia without setting the condition that it first withdraw from Ukrainian territory. On that occasion, in the first weeks of the Russian attack in 2022, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Belarus, then in Turkey, to try to reach a peace agreement, in vain.
“If they want to invite Russia to the summit, we will support them,” commented yesterday the spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, noting however that up to now the Kremlin has shown no sign of wanting a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Moscow has so far ruled out any peace talks until Ukraine abandons the five regions that Moscow wants to annex and does not renounce its alliance with the West. On the front, no decisive breakthrough is in sight on either side, even if intense and deadly fighting continues every day; the Russian army, more numerous and equipped with greater firepower, is slowly and progressively advancing in the eastern territory, at the cost of heavy losses in men and equipment.
US: Kremlin, Russia has never interfered and will not
Russia has never interfered and does not intend to interfere in the internal political processes of the United States, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Zvezda TV channel, according to Ria Novosti. “This is the concern of American voters. We have never interfered and will not interfere in the internal political processes in the United States,” he said.
Moscow, ‘US administration against dialogue on Ukraine'”
“For now, let’s proceed from the existing reality. We see that the current” American “administration is against any dialogue and still insists on continuing the war to the last Ukrainian”: Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said this in response to a question about possible changes after the US presidential elections. Tass reports.
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