Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine

The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed talk by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about a plan he has to end the war. (Reuters)
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Updated 28 August 2024
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Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine

  • Ukrainian president says he would present his plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed talk by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about a plan he has to end the war and said Russia would continue what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Zelensky said on Tuesday he would present his plan — full details of which he did not publicly disclose — to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.

Zelensky, addressing a news conference, said Kyiv’s three-week-old incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was part of his plan, but that it also comprised other steps on the economic and diplomatic fronts.

The idea, said Zelensky — who is pressing Washington to allow his forces to use long-range US-supplied arms to strike deep inside Russia — was to force Moscow to end the war.

“This is not the first time that we have heard such statements from representatives of the Kyiv regime. We are aware of the nature of this Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about Zelensky’s plan.

“We are continuing our special military operation and will achieve all of our goals.”

Russia is currently engaged in repelling the Ukrainian incursion that began on Aug. 6, and is pressing ahead with its own offensive in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Peskov also said that Russia supported India’s view on the need for a peaceful settlement, but said it was “more than obvious” that there was no basis for talks right now.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call that he backed an early, peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, days after Modi held talks with Zelensky in Kyiv.


UN arrives in east DR Congo town to prepare ceasefire mission

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UN arrives in east DR Congo town to prepare ceasefire mission

KINSHASA: A team of UN peacekeepers arrived in the flashpoint eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Uvira to prepare the deployment of a ceasefire?monitoring mission, the force said Tuesday.
Eastern DRC has been ravaged by three decades of conflict and faces renewed violence following the 2021 resurgence of the M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda and its army.
The M23 seized large swathes of territory in the east and launched an offensive in December on Uvira, a strategic town in South Kivu province near the border with Burundi.
The assault drew condemnation from the United States, which has mediated a fragile peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda.
That agreement provided for the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to carry out a field-monitoring operation with a view to implementing a permanent ceasefire.
On Tuesday, MONUSCO and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, a grouping of surrounding countries, said in a statement they had deployed a joint exploratory and preliminary assessment mission to Uvira.
Scheduled to run until Friday, the mission focuses on assessing access, security, logistics and engagement needs, MONUSCO said.
The statement called the mission “an essential step toward deploying the future joint ceasefire?monitoring mechanism.”
In January, the M23 withdrew its last troops from Uvira, claiming it was responding to a US request. The Congolese army said it had retaken control of the town.