WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he expected Russia to present a Ukraine ceasefire outline within days that will show if it is serious, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of buying time.
\nPresident Donald Trump spoke separately by telephone on Monday to Zelensky and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul on Friday for their first direct talks on the conflict in three years.
\nPutin has consistently rejected proposals for a 30-day truce put forward by Kyiv and its Western allies.
\nBut Rubio said that Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated they would present their own terms \u201cmaybe in a number of days, maybe this week hopefully.\u201d
\nThe Russians will offer \u201cjust broad terms that would allow us to move toward a ceasefire, and that ceasefire would then allow us to enter into detailed negotiations to bring about an end of the conflict,\u201d Rubio said.
\nHe said that the presentation will \u201ctell us a lot about their true intentions.\u201d
\n\u201cIf it\u2019s a term sheet that\u2019s realistic and you can work off of it, that\u2019s one thing. If it makes demands that we know are unrealistic, I think that will be indicative.\u201d
\nPutin after Trump\u2019s call said he was ready to work with Ukraine on a \u201cmemorandum\u201d outlining a possible roadmap and different positions on ending the war.
\nAnd Italy\u2019s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday said that Pope Leo XIV was willing \u201cto host upcoming discussions between the parties at the Vatican,\u201d according to her office.
\nRubio insisted to critical lawmakers that Putin \u201chasn\u2019t gotten a single concession\u201d from Trump. But Russia has also not indicated any new flexibility since Trump took office in January with vows to end the war through dialogue.
\n\u201cIt is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation,\u201d Zelensky said in a post on social media.
\nJeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Rubio that Putin\u2019s refusal to go to Istanbul despite the stated willingness of both Zelensky and Trump to meet showed \u201che believes it\u2019s in Russia\u2019s interest to carry out this war as long as possible.\u201d
\nThe European Union formally on Tuesday adopted its 17th round of sanctions on Moscow, targeting 200 vessels of Russia\u2019s so-called shadow maritime fleet.
\nKirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia\u2019s Direct Investment Fund and lead economic negotiator with Washington, attacked the move, saying: \u201cWestern politicians and the media are making titanic efforts to disrupt the constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States.\u201d
\nRubio said that Trump for now opposed new sanctions for fear that Russia would no longer come to the table.
\nMoscow appears confident, with its troops advancing on the battlefield and Trump ending Western isolation of the Kremlin.
\nThe memorandum mentioned by Putin \u201cbuys time for Russia,\u201d Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said.
\n\u201cThe cessation of hostilities is not a condition for it, which means that Russia can continue its offensive,\u201d he added.
\nRussia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has since destroyed swathes of the country\u2019s east, killed tens of thousands and now controls around one-fifth of its territory.
\nPeople who spoke to AFP both in Kyiv and Moscow were skeptical about peace prospects and thought the Putin-Trump call had not brought them closer.
\n\u201cI never had any faith in him and now I have none at all,\u201d retired teacher Victoria Kyseliova said in Kyiv, when asked if she was losing confidence in Trump.
\nVitaliy, a 53-year-old engineer from Kyiv, said Trump was no \u201cmessiah\u201d and that his flurry of diplomacy has changed little.
\nUkrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Trump\u2019s latest calls had only added to the uncertainty.
\n\u201cThis conversation not only failed to clarify the future of the negotiations but further confused the situation,\u201d he said.
\nHe said Trump had fallen for Putin\u2019s tactics of trying to use talks \u201cas a cover to continue and intensify the war.\u201d
\nIn Moscow, there was defiance and confidence.
\n\u201cI believe that we don\u2019t need these negotiations. We will win anyway,\u201d said Marina, a 70-year-old former engineer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he expected Russia to present a Ukraine ceasefire outline within days that will show if it is serious, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of buying time. President Donald Trump spoke separately by telephone on Monday to Zelensky and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, after Russian and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81344,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81326\/revisions\/81344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}