Kremlin says deal to end war with Ukraine cannot be achieved quickly
The United Nations reported that the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in the more than three-year war has surged in recent weeks.
Clinching a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war “is far too complex to be done quickly”, a senior Kremlin official said, as the US labours to bring momentum to peace efforts and expresses frustration over the slow progress.
Meanwhile, a night-time Russian drone attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, wounded at least 45 civilians, officials said.
The United Nations reported that the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in the more than three-year war has surged in recent weeks amid Washington’s attempts to broker a peace agreement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin backs calls for a ceasefire before peace negotiations, “but before it’s done, it’s necessary to answer a few questions and sort out a few nuances”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Mr Putin is also ready for direct talks with Ukraine without preconditions to seek a peace deal, he added.
“We realise that Washington wants to achieve quick progress, but we hope for understanding that the Ukrainian crisis settlement is far too complex to be done quickly,” Mr Peskov said.
“There are many details and an array of small nuances that need to be solved before a settlement.”
US President Donald Trump has previously expressed frustration over the slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war, which he said he could end in the first 24 hours of his new administration in January.
Western European leaders have accused Mr Putin of stalling while his forces seek to grab more Ukrainian land.
Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion on February 24 2022.
Mr Trump has chided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for steps that he said were “prolonging” the “killing field”, and the US leader has rebuked Mr Putin for complicating negotiations with “very bad timing” in launching deadly strikes that battered the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
The US president has long dismissed the war as a waste of American taxpayer money and of lives lost in the conflict.
Senior US officials have warned that the administration could abandon the peace efforts if it sees no solution.
That could spell an end to crucial military help for Ukraine and heavier economic sanctions on Russia.
The US State Department on Tuesday tried again to push both sides to move more quickly.
“We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,” department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce quoted US secretary of state Marco Rubio as telling her.
“How we proceed from here is a decision that belongs now to the president,” she told reporters, relating a conversation that she had with Mr Rubio.
“If there is not progress, we will step back as mediators in this process.”
Russia has effectively rejected a US proposal for an immediate and full 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine’s mobilisation effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Wednesday that Ukraine had accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the battlefield, where the bigger Russian forces have the upper hand.
“In the context of the developments on the ground, along the front line where the Kyiv regime is increasingly in retreat, they have made an about-turn and started demanding an immediate ceasefire without any preconditions,” Mr Lavrov said at a briefing in Rio de Janeiro where he was attending a ministerial meeting of the Brics grouping.
He also suggested that Ukraine’s ceasefire promises were not credible.
Both sides have accused each other of breaking previous truces.
Independent verification of the battlefield claims was not possible.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every day this year, according to a UN report presented on Tuesday in New York.
The UN Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year it had verified 2,641 civilian casualties in Ukraine.
That was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.
Also, between April 1 and 24, civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 46% from the same weeks in 2024, it said.
The Ukrainian air force said that Russia fired 108 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine between Tuesday and Wednesday, predominantly at the cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv.
Also on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Security Service claimed its drones struck the Murom Instrument Engineering Plant in Russia’s Vladimir region overnight, causing five explosions and a fire.
The plant located east of Moscow produces ammunition ignition devices, as well as components and products for the Russian navy and military aviation, a source at the agency told The Associated Press.
The claim could not be independently verified.
