US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are expected to speak this week, officials said on Sunday, European colleagues of Washington and Kiev pressed Moscow to the press Moscow to accept the ceasefire in a three -year war.
This week, the United States proposed to fight in the war after negotiations in Saudi Arabia, in which Kiev accepted the proposal.
Putin, however, has not given any clear answer, listed a string of conditions instead and increased the “serious question” on the proposal.
Trump’s messenger for the conflict, Steve Witchoff, who met for several hours with Putin, told CNN in a television interview that he feels that “the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week.”
Earlier, Moscow said that US State Secretary Marco Rubio had called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavarov and the pair discussed “concrete aspects of implementation of understanding” at the US-Russia Summit in Saudi Arabia last month.
Ukraine’s Volodimier Zelansky on Saturday accused Kremlin that he did not want to end the war and warned that Moscow wanted to “improve his position on the battlefield” before agreeing to any ceasefire.
The February Riyadh Sabha was the first high -level meeting between the United States and Russia as Moscow launched its attack in February 2022.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said, “Sergei Lavarov and Marco Rubio agreed to stay in touch,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, there is no mention of the American-Chinese ceasefire.
State Department spokesman Tami Bruce said on Saturday that the pair “discussed the next stages” on Ukraine.
He also said that Rubio and Lavarov “agreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia”.
The Lavarov-Rubio call came a few hours after hosting a virtual summit on Ukraine, in which Prime Minister Kir Star accused Putin of “pulling his legs” on the ceasefire.
“‘Yes, but” is not much better than Russia, “the stormer said,” Once and all called a stop for barbaric attacks on Ukraine “.
The next day Kiev said that Russia launched 90 Iranian -made Shahd drones in nine Ukrainian regions.
Zelansky says that Putin is ‘lying’
In his response to the ceasefire earlier this week, Putin said that the initiative would mainly benefit Ukraine and not the Russian forces, who said that he has “moving” in many areas.
He raised “serious questions” on the initiative.
The proposal came in the form of Russia – which occupies the swaths of southern and eastern Ukraine – in some front areas.
This has excluded Ukrainian forces from some parts of its cursive region, where Kiev is expected to catch in the Russian area as a possible bargaining chip in any future interaction.
Putin said that he wanted to discuss Moscow’s concerns with Trump in a phone call.
Zelansky said on Saturday that with not agreeing to the ceasefire, Putin was also going against Trump – who has extended to Russia – and accused Moscow of trying to find ways not to end the war.
He “accused Putin of lying how a ceasefire is considered a ceasefire”.
Ukraine said on Sunday that a person was killed by a Russian drone strike on the city of Izum – in the Kharkiv region, which fell into Russia at the beginning of his Ukraine invasion before the withdrawal by Keev’s forces.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
