Russia cannot accept US proposals to end the war in Ukraine in their current form because they do not address the issues Moscow sees as the root of the conflict, a senior Russian diplomat said, suggesting that US-Russian talks on the issue have stalled.
The comments by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggest that Moscow and Washington have so far failed to bridge differences that President Vladimir Putin outlined more than two weeks ago when he said the US proposals needed to be reworked.
They come as US President Donald Trump appears to be growing increasingly impatient with what he has suggested could be a delay in a broader deal with Moscow.
Trump has said in recent days that he is “angry” with Putin and has talked about imposing sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if he believes Moscow is blocking the deal.
Ryabkov, an expert on US-Russia relations, said Moscow is not yet in a position to move forward with the deal.
“We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously, but we cannot accept all of them in their current form,” Ryabkov told the Russian magazine International Affairs in an interview published on Tuesday, as quoted by state media.
“As far as we can see, there is no place in them today for our main demand, which is to resolve the problems related to the root causes of this conflict. It is not there at all, and this must be overcome,” he said.
Putin has said he wants Ukraine to abandon its ambitions to join NATO, for Russia to control all four Ukrainian regions it has declared its own, and for the size of the Ukrainian army to be limited. Kiev says those demands are tantamount to asking for its capitulation.
Asked about Trump’s latest statements that he wants Putin to reach a deal on Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier in the day that Moscow was “continuing our contacts with the American side.”
“The subject is very complex. The substance of what we are discussing, related to the Ukrainian settlement, is very complex. It requires a lot of additional effort,” he said.
Before the weekend, Trump took a more conciliatory stance towards Russia that left Western allies wary as he tried to mediate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
In recent days, however, and amid lobbying from Europeans such as the Finnish president who are calling on him to hold Russia accountable, he has adopted a harsher tone, Reuters reports.
