By Guy Faulconbridge and Gleb Stolyarov
MOSCOW, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide said on Sunday that changes made by the Europeans and Ukraine to U.S. proposals for an end to the war in Ukraine did not improve prospects for peace.
The U.S.-drafted proposals for an end to the nearly four-year-old war, leaked to the media last month, raised European and Ukrainian concerns that they were tilted too far in Russia’s favour and that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration could push Kyiv into conceding too much.
Since then, European and Ukrainian negotiators have met with Trump envoys in an attempt to add their own proposals into the U.S. drafts, though the exact contents of the current proposal have not been disclosed.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow that the European and Ukrainian changes would not improve the chances of peace.
“This is not a forecast,” Ushakov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies, though he said he had not seen the exact proposals on paper yet.
“I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace.”
PUTIN ENVOY MEETING US OFFICIALS IN FLORIDA
Ushakov made the remarks after Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, met in Florida on Saturday with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Dmitriev said the talks would continue on Sunday.
The Miami meeting followed U.S. talks on Friday with Ukrainian and European officials.
At stake is whether Putin will agree an end to the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, the future of Ukraine, the extent to which European powers are sidelined and whether or not a peace deal brokered by the United States will endure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine would back a U.S. proposal for three-way talks with the United States and Russia if it facilitated more exchanges of prisoners and paved the way for meetings of national leaders.
Ushakov said that a proposal for three-way talks had not been seriously discussed by anyone and that it was not being worked on.
Russia says that European leaders are intent on scuttling the peace talks by introducing conditions that they know will be unacceptable to Russia, which took 12-17 square km (4.6-6.6 square miles) of Ukrainian territory per day in 2025.
Ukraine and European leaders say that Russia cannot be allowed to achieve its aims after what they cast as an imperial-style land grab.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Guy Faulconbridge, Andrew Heavens and Frances Kerry)
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