Western European leaders are constantly making proposals that are unacceptable for Russia, presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said
EU leaders are complicating Russia-US efforts to reach a settlement on the Ukraine conflict by making unacceptable demands, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Speaking to Zvezda TV, Ushakov stated that Russia has been making progress in negotiations with the US following this week’s five-hour meeting in the Kremlin between President Vladimir Putin, US envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner.
He added that Moscow is encouraged and “ready to continue working with this American team,” and that the discussions have been “very useful, constructive [and] very substantive.”
European states, however, have reportedly been urging Kiev to reject any deal with Moscow without receiving security guarantees from the US, according to the Wall Street Journal. The EU and UK have also insisted on playing a larger role in the peace process.
Ushakov said European leaders “constantly make demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,” adding that “to put it mildly, the Europeans are not helping to reach a settlement between Washington and Moscow on Ukrainian affairs.”
Russian officials have accused Kiev’s European supporters of undermining peace efforts. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month that Europe has effectively “removed itself” from the negotiations by repeatedly derailing proposals since 2014 and most recently in 2022. He added that European representatives have “used up [their] chances” to influence the process.
Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has also said European leaders have tried to pressure Washington and warned that some of their interventions amounted to “peace sabotage.”
Earlier this week, commenting on the EU’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric and its rejection of the US-drafted peace plan, Putin accused the bloc of clinging to the “fantasy” of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, arguing that the EU “does not have a peaceful agenda” and is instead “on the side of war.”
He warned that while Russia has no intention of fighting the EU or NATO, the situation could quickly become dire if Western nations launched a war against Russia.
