MOSCOW: A top Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that the impetus to find a peace deal to end the fighting in Ukraine which emerged after a summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump in August had proven to be largely exhausted.
Trump and Putin met at a Cold War-era air force base in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15 in an attempt to end the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.
Trump, who had previously said Kyiv should give up land to make peace with Moscow, has repeatedly said that he is disappointed with Putin for not ending the war, and has cast Russia as a “paper tiger.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees relations with the US and arms control, accused European powers which support Ukraine of successfully torpedoing peace efforts.
“Unfortunately, we have to admit that Anchorage’s powerful momentum in favor of agreements has been largely exhausted by the efforts of opponents and supporters of the war,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
“This is the result of destructive activities, primarily by the Europeans,” he said.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the war as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces. Putin blames the West for ignoring Moscow’s security concerns after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union about the enlargement of the NATO military alliance.
Ryabkov also said that the potential appearance of US Tomahawk missiles in Ukraine would mean a “qualitative” change in the situation, Interfax quoted him as saying.
Trump said earlier this week he would want to know what Ukraine planned to do with Tomahawks before agreeing to provide them because he did not want to escalate the war.
Russian diplomat: Impetus for peace in Ukraine after Putin-Trump summit has been exhausted
https://arab.news/mqf4e
Russian diplomat: Impetus for peace in Ukraine after Putin-Trump summit has been exhausted
- Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accuses European powers of successfully torpedoing peace efforts
- ‘This is the result of destructive activities, primarily by the Europeans’
18 killed in central Myanmar airstrike
- Two bombs were dropped on Tabayin township in Sagaing region
- A rescue worker who arrived on the scene 15 minutes after the strike said seven people were killed on the spot
TABAYIN, Myanmar: Eighteen people were killed in an airstrike on a town in central Myanmar, according to a local official, a rescue worker and two residents who spoke to AFP on Saturday.
Myanmar has been rocked by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, and its battles with numerous anti-coup fighters have brought frequent airstrikes that often kill civilians.
Two bombs were dropped on Tabayin township in Sagaing region on Friday evening, with one hitting a busy teashop, according to a local administration official.
He told AFP that 18 people were killed and 20 were wounded in the attacks.
“Deaths were high at the teashop as it was crowded time,” he said. All of the sources who spoke to AFP requested anonymity for their protection.
A rescue worker who arrived on the scene 15 minutes after the strike said seven people were killed on the spot and 11 others died later at hospital.
The teashop — a traditional social hub in Myanmar — and around a dozen houses nearby were “totally destroyed,” he said.
A survivor said he was watching a televised boxing match in the teashop when the bomb hit.
“As soon as I heard aircraft fly over, I got my body to the ground,” he said, adding that the sound from the blast was deafening.
“I saw a big fire over my head... I was lucky, I returned home after that.”
A junta spokesman did not answer a call from an AFP reporter.
Funerals for those killed were held on Saturday, with some victims’ faces covered by towels as they had been rendered unrecognizable, a local resident said.
“I feel very sad because I knew some of them very well,” she said.
A junta airstrike in Sagaing in May killed 22 people, including 20 children, despite a purported ceasefire called after a devastating earthquake hit Myanmar.
