Russia criticises European moves to amend US plan to end Ukraine war

Russia criticises European moves to amend US plan to end Ukraine war Putin aide Yury Ushakov’s remarks come a day after US and Russian officials held talks on the US proposal in Florida. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide says that changes made by European countries and Ukraine to the United States’s proposals for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine do not improve the prospects for peace. “I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace,” Yury Ushakov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on Sunday. Recommended Stories list of 4 items list 1 of 4 Russian attack on Ukraine’s Odesa kills at least 8 as peace talks lumber on list 2 of 4 Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,396 list 3 of 4 US, Russian officials meet in Miami for talks on Ukraine war list 4 of 4 Russia-Ukraine war may “grind on for another 12 to 18 months” The US-drafted proposals for an end to the nearly four-year ⁠war, leaked to the media last month, raised European and Ukrainian concerns that they favour more of Russia’s wartime demands, ​and that US President Donald Trump’s administration could push Kyiv into conceding too much. Since then, European and ‍Ukrainian negotiators have met with Trump’s envoys in an attempt to add their own proposals to the US draft, though the exact contents of the amended proposal have not been disclosed. Ushakov’s remarks came after Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, met in Florida on Saturday with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Dmitriev said the talks would continue ​on Sunday. The US officials have also been holding talks in Miami with European and Ukrainian officials since Friday. “Over the last three days in Florida, the Ukrainian delegation held a series of productive and constructive meetings with American and European partners,” Witkoff wrote ‍in a social ⁠media post on Sunday. He said the talks focused on four key points: further development of the US 20-point plan, a multilateral security guarantee framework, a US security guarantee framework for Ukraine, and further development on economics and ​prosperity to rebuild Ukraine. Negotiators focused especially on “timelines” and the “sequencing of next steps”, Witkoff said. He did not mention the talks with the Russian officials. Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his team should hold more talks with European allies. “There is a shared sense that after the work by our diplomatic team in the United States, we should now hold consultations with European partners in a broader circle,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Sunday. Three-way talks? Zelenskyy had said on Saturday that Ukraine ‌would back a US proposal for three-way talks with the US and Russia if it facilitated more exchanges of prisoners. Ushakov ‌said that a proposal for three-way talks had not been seriously...

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