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Moscow and Washington are set to discuss the ceasefire agreement today, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said
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Russian president Vladimir Putin is unlikely to agree to the 30-day ceasefire agreement between Washington and Kyiv and finds it “difficult to accept”, Moscow sources have said.
Officials from Ukraine and the US yesterday agreed on the ceasefire, alongside a restoration of US military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, during talks in Saudi Arabia.
Moscow would need to hash out the terms of the ceasefire and obtain some form of security guarantees, a senior source told Reuters. “It is difficult for Putin to agree to this in its current form,” the source said, adding that “Putin has a strong position because Russia is advancing.”
Speaking in a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday, Mr Zelensky said he has “no trust” in Russia. “I have emphasised this many times, none of us trust the Russians,” he said.
Kyiv supports the Trump administration’s push for peace as soon as possible, Mr Zelensky added, and sees the resumption of US military aid and intelligence sharing as very positive.
It comes after US secretary of state Marco Rubio – who was part of the delegation in Saudi Arabia – told reporters in Ireland that US and Russia will discuss the agreement today.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has outlined the country’s three key demands following peace talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.
In a video posted on social media after the talks ended yesterday, he listed Kyiv’s main priorities: a ceasefire in the air, a ceasefire in the sea, and the release of prisoners of war and detainees.
The US and Ukraine peace talks have wrapped up with a 30-ceasefire agreement between Washington and Kyiv, but fighting on the ground has continued.
In an update from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine this afternoon, the Ukrainian army said Russia was continuing its efforts to advance into Ukrainian territory.
“So far, the enemy has attacked the positions of the Defense Forces 66 times,” the army said in a post on social media, adding the attacks were most active in the Pokrovsk and Toretsky areas.
“The border areas of our country were affected by Russian artillery shelling, in particular the settlements of Oleksandrivka, Baranivka, Starikove, Komarivka of the Sumy region; Archipivka of the Chernihiv region,” the post continued.
UK Defence Secretary John Healey has joined his European counterparts in Paris this afternoon to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine.
The defence leaders will use the meeting to discuss security arrangements including potential European peacekeepers should a ceasefire take place.
There will be a press conference following the meeting at 5.30pm.
So far the Kremlin has declined to comment on a potential ceasefire with Ukraine following peace talks between Ukraine and the US in Jeddah.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would be reaching out to Russia to discuss “ending all hostilities” soon.
“We all eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities,” he said.
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to head to Moscow later this week for a meeting with Russia.
The Kremlin is yet to confirm any meeting, but a spokesperson said Russia expected US officials to reach out “through various channels” in coming days to explain what understandings were reached with Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington urges Russia to end “all hostilities” to end the war, adding that neither Russia nor Ukraine would achieve all their goals.
Earlier today, Rubio said the conflict would only end through negotiation.
“That’s the only way you’re going to have peace, is through negotiation,” he said on a refueling stop in Ireland.
“And so we need to start that process, and it is hard to start a process when people are shooting at each other and people are dying.
He continued: “And so our hope is that we can stop that, all these hostilities, and get to a negotiating table where both sides, over some period of time, with a lot of hard work, can find a mutually acceptable outcome that, in the case of Ukraine, obviously secures their long-term prosperity and security.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the makeup of a potential European peacekeeping mission in Ukraine was still under discussion.
Asked in Ireland whether Washington backed the prospect of European peacekeepers, he said: “We’ll see. I mean, there’s different ways to construct a deterrent on the ground that prevents another war from starting in the future.
“We’re not going to go in with any sort of preconceived notion. The bottom line is it needs to be something that makes Ukraine feel as if they can deter and prevent a future invasion.
“How that looks and how that’s put together, that’s what we’re going to be talking about if we can get to that stage.”
Steve Bannon loves talking. In fact, he can’t stop. The Trump whisperer has laid out a plan behind the abandonment of Ukraine, namely for the United States to make a deal with Russia and turn to its real enemy, China. While Beltway think-tankers apply their fine minds to the puzzle of the Trump administration’s diplomacy, Bannon has cheerfully taken to the airwaves, most recently on the podcast of Tim Dillon, a stand-up comedian, to explain it to the little guy.
The short version goes like this. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is at war with the United States. Elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street sold out the working class and handed the Chinese the keys to wealth. Now, the only way to stop China is to cut it off from all capital and technology. It’s called decoupling.
Michael Sheridan writes:
Ukrainian forces appear to no longer be in control of the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, according to an open-source intelligence map.
The DeepState battlefield map appeared to show that Kyiv’s forces had left the town, amid a Russian offensive to recapture its territory in Kursk.
But DeepState afterwards confirmed that fighting is continuing on the outskirts of the town on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson for the Kursk front declined to comment.
Sudzha is the largest settlement in a piece of Russian territory which Ukraine seized last August to act as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations regarding Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour.
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