Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly after hundreds of thousands of deaths, said on Sunday he thought he was making progress though he has not set out how he hopes to end the conflict.
The Kremlin refused to either confirm or deny the contact.
The “political solution as we envisage it cannot be achieved otherwise than through the full implementation of what was pronounced by President Putin when he spoke to the Russian Foreign Ministry in June,“ Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told a Moscow news briefing in English.
In Putin’s June 14 speech to the foreign ministry, he set out his terms: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a Russia-friendly president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.
PEACE IN UKRAINE?
Putin said what he calls a “special military operation” was needed to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine and counter what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership of NATO.
“Without solving the problems which were the root causes of what is happening, it will not be possible to reach an agreement,“ Ryabkov said. “So variations and half-measures are not the path we are prepared to go along.”
Moscow controls about 20% of Ukraine, including Crimea, annexed in 2014, and four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Reuters reported in November that Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine peace deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Reuters on Friday that he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in return for financial support for its war effort.
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