Kirill Dmitriev will get acquainted with Washington’s and Brussels’ positions on the Ukraine peace process and brief President Vladimir Putin
Senior Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has gone to the US to get up to date on the West’s current position regarding the Ukraine peace process, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has revealed. The presidential envoy is expected to brief Vladimir Putin upon his return to Moscow.
Last month, a peace framework drafted by the administration of US President Donald Trump was leaked to the media, unleashing hectic diplomatic back-and-forth among US, EU, Russian, and Ukrainian representatives. The original 28-point proposal reportedly envisaged Kiev renouncing its claim to Russia’s Donbass as well as its NATO membership aspirations, with a cap on the size of its armed forces among other key requirements.
Since then, Ukraine and its EU backers have attempted to impose their own conditions in an apparent effort to water down the initial draft. Moscow has said it will stand by its red lines.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday while on his trip to the US, Dmitriev said that those seeking to prolong the Ukraine conflict had “been unable” to derail talks with Trump’s representatives.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov stated on Sunday that Dmitriev would “receive information on what the Americans and the Europeans have worked out” and then report to President Putin.
President Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday that Moscow would evaluate the Western position to see “what can be accepted and what categorically cannot be accepted.”
“Most of the proposals [put forward by Kiev and its European backers], of course, do not suit us,” the official added. Ushakov stressed that Russia would stick to the understanding reached between Putin and Trump during their summit in Anchorage in August.
At his end-of-year live Q&A session on Friday, President Putin stressed that Russia was “ready both for negotiations and for ending the conflict through peaceful means.”
“The ball is entirely in the court of our Western opponents – above all the leaders of the Kiev regime and their European sponsors,” he concluded.
