MOSCOW: Russia said it will hold security talks with the US and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on Friday, but warned after a late-night meeting between President Vladimir Putin and three US envoys that a durable peace would not be possible unless territorial issues were resolved.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the talks, which began shortly before midnight and lasted some four hours, had been useful and extremely frank.
He said Russian Admiral Igor Kostyukov would head Moscow’s team at the three-way security talks, and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev would meet separately on economic issues with Steve Witkoff, the envoy of President Donald Trump.
But while outlining the next steps, Ushakov stopped short of hailing any major breakthrough.
“Most importantly, during these talks between our president and the Americans, it was reiterated that without resolving the territorial issue according to the formula agreed upon in Anchorage, there is no hope of achieving a long-term settlement,” he said, referring to last year’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
Ushakov said Putin underlined that Russia was “sincerely interested” in a diplomatic solution.
He added, however: “Until this is achieved, Russia will continue to consistently pursue the objectives of the special military operation. This is especially true on the battlefield, where the Russian armed forces hold the strategic initiative.”
Putin, Ushakov and Dmitriev took part in the talks on the Russian side.
On the US side, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who last met Putin in the Kremlin in early December, were accompanied by Josh Gruenbaum, newly appointed by Trump as a senior adviser to his Board of Peace, which will seek to tackle world conflicts.
The talks were the latest stage in a drive by Trump to bring an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, now approaching the end of its fourth year.
Russia agrees next steps with US envoys but says territory is the key issue
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Russia agrees next steps with US envoys but says territory is the key issue
- Kremlin says no lasting settlement without agreement on territory
Russia says seized a dozen Ukrainian villages in February
MOSCPW: Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defense ministry said Sunday.
Gerasimov visit comes days before US-mediated talks with Kyiv in Geneva on ending almost four years of war and ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine.
“In two weeks of February, despite severe winter conditions, combined forces and military units of the joint task force liberated 12 settlements,” Gerasimov said.
AFP could not independently verify these claims.
The pace of Moscow’s advance picked up in Autumn, but Russia has not reached its goal to seize the Donetsk region in four years of war.
Russia demands that Kyiv withdraw from the Donetsk region for any deal to end the conflict — terms unacceptable to Ukraine.
Gerasimov said Moscow’s troops were moving in the direction of Sloviansk — an industrial hub that briefly fell to pro-Russian separatists in 2014 and which has been under frequent Russian attack.
Moscow’s forces are around 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the city.
Moscow claims the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as its own.
But it has also advanced into other Ukrainian regions.
Gerasimov said Russia was “expanding a security zone” in border areas in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv region, where it controls pockets of territory.
The army chief also said he would discuss with officers “further actions in the Dnipropetrovsk direction.”
Russian forces crossed into the Dnipropetrovsk region last summer in their push westwards — but the Kremlin has never laid an official claim on the region.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Moscow is intent on seizing the whole of the Donetsk region by force if diplomacy fails.
