Has the US rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine? Russian sources claim: “Contacts with the Americans came to nothing”

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Russia has been waging a bloody war in Ukraine for almost two years. The suffering and great losses are taking their toll on people’s lives. Now, according to Russian sources, Russian President Vladimir Putin (71) has offered the West a ceasefire in Ukraine through intermediaries in the Arab world. However, the US responded negatively.

Putin told Washington publicly and privately in 2023 that he was willing to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine, three Russian sources told Reuters. At the time, he would have wanted to ‘freeze’ the conflict along the front lines. Although Putin was unwilling to hand over Russian-controlled areas to Ukraine, the move was “one of the best paths to a peace solution.” But: “Contacts with the Americans came to nothing,” said one of the three anonymous sources at the beginning of this year about a possible rapprochement attempt at the end of 2023. The reason: the US did not want to hold talks in which the Ukrainians did not participate.

Attempted contact before meeting between Biden and Blinken?

Moscow’s aim was to pass on the demands to a meeting between US President Joe Biden (81) with his security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (61). The idea was that Blinken would later have a conversation with Russian foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov. However, this never happened.

The White House and the US State Department have not yet responded to the Reuters report. The Kremlin has since denied the reports. “That is not the truth,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference in Moscow. A US official who spoke anonymously to Reuters in Washington said the US had not held back-channel talks with Russia.

No official talks

However, according to the American official, unofficial talks were said to have taken place between Russians and Arab intermediaries. However, the US was not involved.

Relations between the two nuclear powers Russia and the US have been described as bad since the outbreak of the war. Internationally, Russia has campaigned, especially with China, to join forces against the United States.

Source: Blick