The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected accusations by U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg that it is delaying the next round of peace talks with Ukraine as Russian forces continue to bomb civilian areas.
“No one is delaying anything here,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We’re interested in achieving our goals, which we are pursuing through the special military operation [and] by political and diplomatic means.”
Kellogg, who U.S. President Donald Trump appointed as his special envoy to Ukraine, had earlier criticized Peskov’s remarks on the stalled negotiations as “Orwellian” and “unfounded,” accusing Moscow of blaming others for its own obstruction.
“We urge an immediate ceasefire and a move to trilateral talks to end the war. Russia cannot continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine,” Kellogg wrote Monday on X.
Kellogg was responding to a Kyiv Independent article titled “After months of stalling, Russia blames Ukraine, U.S. for slow pace of peace talks.”
The article cited a Reuters quote from Peskov’s recent interview with Belarusian state media, in which he said the progress of talks depended on the positions of both Kyiv and Washington, as well as the battlefield situation.
“A lot depends, naturally, on the position of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov was quoted as saying. “It depends on how effectively Washington’s mediating efforts continue.”
Peskov responded Tuesday by thanking the Trump administration for helping to facilitate negotiations with Ukraine. He added that agreeing on a date for the third round of talks was the “next step,” following the implementation of previous humanitarian agreements.
Russia and Ukraine previously met in Istanbul on May 16, when they agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each, and again on June 2, when they reached a deal on another prisoner swap and the exchange of about 6,000 fallen soldiers’ remains.
However, those talks failed to deliver progress toward a ceasefire.
President Vladimir Putin, who has rejected calls for an immediate truce and escalated airstrikes in recent weeks, said Friday that negotiations were ongoing despite the “absolutely contradictory” Russian and Ukrainian demands for peace.
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