Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to a “Permanent Peace” agreement with Ukraine, said the special envoy of the United States Steve Witkoff.
President Donald Trump’s envoy made the claim in a television interview on Monday night, after “convincing” conversations with Putin in St. Petersburg last week. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that agreeing the terms in an “is not easy” agreement, while Ukraine and its European allies have asked Washington not to be deceived by Moscow’s delay tactics with respect to a high fire.
“I think we could be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world in general,” Witkoff told Fox News in an interview after his meeting with the Russian leader on Friday, recognizing that “it took us some time to reach this place”, but that he saw an “emerging” agreement after five hours of conversations.
He also pointed out a potential to “remodel” the relationship of the Russian and united states through “commercial opportunities” that would bring stability to the region.
Friday’s meeting was the third between Russia and the United States since Trump returned to the White House in January, claiming that he could resolve the conflict within 24 hours.
Despite the gust of diplomacy, it has a bit of bone significant progress to achieve fire, although Ukraine accepts US proposals.
Russia, however, has not offered key concessions, while continuing to bombard its neighbor. On Sunday, he launched one of the most mortal attacks in the war in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, a movement that Trump called an “error”, without elaborating.
Both parties have accused each other of violating a negotiated agreement in the United States to stop attacks against the energy facilities of the other.
Guilt game
Despite Witkoff’s optimistic report, Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper published on Monday that it is not easy to “agree” key components “or a peace agreement.
However, he granted that the Trump administration is trying to understand the “root cause” of the conflict, which was triggered by “the actions of Washington and Brussels” by “bringing the current regime to power in Ukraine.”
Trump, who has alarmed Ukraine by assuming many points of the Russian agenda regarding the war, supported that point of view on Monday when he told journalists that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the former president of the United States, Joe Biden, were responsible for starting the conflict, along with Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump said there were “millions of people dead due to three people.”
“Let’s say Putin number one, but say Biden, who had no idea what the hell I was doing, number two and Zenskyy,” he said, by dismissing the attempts of the Ukrainian leader to defend the country’s missiles.
“When you start a war, you should know that you can win the war,” Trump said. “You don’t start someone who is 20 times your size, and then those people give you some missiles.”
‘Mocking your good will’
The relations between Trump and Zenskyy have been tense since the president surprised the world by opening conversations with Russia in February, a movement that critics say that Kremlin is an advantage in terms.
The negotiations on an agreement that would give the United States access to priority to lucrative minerals in Ukraine had a difficult start after Trump and Zenskyy had a burning argument in the Oval office six weeks ago.
Ukraine has been alarmed for his omission of the conversations between the United States and Russia.
“Please, before any type of decisions, any type of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zenskyy said in an interview for CBS Progummummum.
Meanwhile, kyiv’s European allies have urged Trump and his team not to be tasks for Russia’s delay tactics in high -fire conversations.
The Minister of Poles Foreign Affairs, Radoslaw, Sikorski, said Monday that he expected that, after the attack against Sumy, Trump and his administration would see Putin “make fun of his good will.”