Conflicting Russian signals on the peace talks

TT

Updated 13.04 | Published 03.29

 

Moscow negotiator Kirill Dmitriyev, left, and US envoy Steve Witkoff earlier in December. Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna/Sputnik, Pool Via AP/TT

Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriyev, who is in Miami for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, thinks that the discussions so far have been constructive.

But back home in Moscow, the Russian president's adviser Yuri Ushakov sends conflicting signals.

Kirill Dmitriyev, who arrived in Miami on Saturday, has held talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

- The discussions continue constructively. They started and continue today, and will also continue tomorrow, he told reporters on Saturday, according to Russian state media.

But Yuri Ushakov, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, said on Sunday that the chances of a peace deal had not been improved by the changes made to the original peace plan first put forward by the US

- I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and the Ukrainians have made, or are trying to make, definitely do not improve the document and do not increase the possibility of achieving a lasting peace, he says according to the Reuters news agency report.

Ushakov also refutes the information from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi that Washington proposed direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in which the United States would also participate.

- Currently, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, as far as I know, and it is not included in what is being prepared, he tells Russian media.

At the same time as the negotiations in Miami, the Russian president has opened direct talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, which is welcomed by the Élysée Palace, the presidential headquarters in Paris.