MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin is open to peace in Ukraine and intense work is going on with the United States, but the conflict is so complicated that the rapid progress that Washington wants is difficult to achieve, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the more than three-year war in Ukraine.
But Washington has been signalling that it is frustrated by the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to reach terms to end the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.
“The (Russian) president remains open to political and diplomatic methods of resolving this conflict,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He noted that Putin had expressed a willingness for direct talks with Ukraine, but that there had been no answer yet from Kyiv.
After the Kremlin’s remark, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine was ready for peace talks in any format if Moscow signed up to an unconditional ceasefire.
