Putin’s right-hand man issues huge blow to Zelensky and Trump | US | News
Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man has announced that Russia will not accept a ceasefire unless clear conditions are met, and experts see this as a major blow to Russia. Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky is ahead Putin’s summit in Budapest.
“Russia WE DO NOT accept a ceasefire until the root causes of the conflict are revealed Ukrainian “This follows the outbreak of confusion regarding the reported meeting between Lavrov and the US Secretary of State,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a statement. Marco Rubio.
CNN reported that the talks were to be held in preparation for Trump and Putin’s summit in Hungary, but were “suspended for now.” Rubio and Lavrov had “different expectations” about an end Russiathe war inside Ukrainian.
It was initially reported that Russia was reluctant to soften its stance or back down on its demands, such as for Ukraine to surrender full control of Donetsk, a strategically important region in the eastern part of the country, and Rubio was hesitant to propose a Trump-Putin meeting next week.
But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov rejected these claims on Tuesday, saying “it is wrong to say that the meeting was postponed” because “there was no agreement in the beginning.”
“You cannot postpone something that was never agreed upon,” Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow. “We had no idea about the timing or location of such contact. The idea exists, of course, and it’s an important one, but it requires preparation. That’s what we’re doing.”
Lavrov and Rubio spoke Monday about plans for an expected summit for their respective presidents in Budapest. The summit was announced in advance Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Friday. Lavrov described the call as “constructive” and said both talked about “concrete steps” to continue the agreement reached during Trump’s October 16 meeting with Putin.
Trump wrote about the phone call in a post on Truth Social last week, calling it “very productive.”
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“At the conclusion of the call, we agreed to hold a meeting of our Senior Advisors next week. The first meetings of the United States will be chaired by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with various others to be determined. A meeting location will be determined,” he wrote.
“President Putin and I will meet later at an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘dishonorable’ war between Russia and Ukraine to an end.”
Despite Russia’s flexibility regarding the meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s position on ending the war “has not changed.”
After his meeting with Putin and an emergency meeting with Zelensky, Trump suggested that Moscow and Kiev “should stand where they are,” referring to current front-line operations.
Zelensky has repeatedly said he is ready to meet with Putin to end the war; but neither the White House nor the Kremlin mentioned his participation in the planned Budapest summit.
