Russia pleased with Zelensky’s comments on US stance over Donbas

MOSCOW: Russia is pleased about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks that Washington has tied its offer of security guarantees to Kyiv surrendering the eastern Donbas region, a senior Kremlin official said on Thursday.
Zelensky’s comment, which he made in an interview with Reuters, “can’t help but make us happy,” Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters on Thursday.
“He said an important thing... he finally understood that the US position is that they’ll only support security guarantees if Ukraine quits Donbas,” Dmitriev ⁠said.
Zelensky told Reuters ⁠that amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, President Donald Trump was applying pressure to Kyiv in an effort to bring an end to the four-year war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
While acknowledging the US stance on Donbas, Zelensky said Washington needed to understand “that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees.”
He wants ⁠robust security guarantees from international partners to ensure that Russia does not restart hostilities in the future, after any peace deal is agreed.
Dmitriev stressed that the ongoing negotiations with the US did not prevent Russia from taking tough actions elsewhere if needed, citing “provocations, including from the EU and Britain, against our fleet, which they are trying to arrest.”
Russia has also informed the US of recent drone attacks by Ukraine on Russian energy infrastructure, which he called an attempt to exacerbate the global energy crisis, he said.
At least 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacity is at a halt following Ukrainian drone attacks, a disputed attack on a major pipeline and the seizure of tankers, according to Reuters calculations. This is the most severe oil supply disruption in the modern history of Russia.