#Index # #ceasefire #negotiations #Russia #United #States #place
According to the report, the negotiations took place even earlier, between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, but the details have only now been learned from three Russian sources familiar with the matter.
However, the case is not without precedent, because in December, The New York Times also published a report that Vladimir Putin secretly offered a ceasefire through intermediaries and was willing to agree on the current front lines.
The news agency’s sources have now confirmed that there was indeed such an offer,
but US officials declined to enter into formal negotiations.
According to Russian sources, Putin communicated to Washington several times in 2023, publicly and behind closed doors, that he would be open to a ceasefire. According to them, the Russian president would not have been willing to give up any of the occupied territories, but some in the Kremlin saw that the cease-fire offer could really lead to some kind of ceasefire.
According to , the Russians have tried several times, but to no avail. “Contacts with the Americans have come to nothing,” said one senior Russian source. And another Russian source said that the Americans had told them that they were not willing to negotiate a ceasefire without the participation of Ukraine, and that the process ended.
The latter was essentially confirmed by a US official to , who said: Washington has not held formal talks with Russia on a ceasefire and will not do so without involving Ukraine in the process. According to the third Russian source, the negotiations broke down because the Americans did not want to put pressure on the Ukrainians.
The US official also added that they saw some frustration on Moscow’s part at being repeatedly rejected. In addition, another diplomatic source told the news agency that the Americans and Russians were conducting unofficial talks through intermediaries (the American source said he did not know about this).
This is how the groping went
According to the Russians, the mediators of the two parties met for the first time in the fall of 2023 in Turkey. Putin’s message then reached Washington and was discussed by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, CIA Director Williams Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
According to the Russians, the next step would have been to arrange a meeting between Sullivan and Yuri Usakov to agree on a way forward (Usakov is the Russian president’s foreign affairs adviser). But in January, according to a Russian source, Sullivan finally said by phone:
they are willing to negotiate with the Russians on many issues, but the Ukrainian ceasefire is not one of them.
The Russian president was not happy about this. “I knew they wouldn’t do anything in the end. They cut the root of the relations that took two months to establish,” Putin said after the Sullivan call, according to one Russian source. Another Russian official, on the other hand, said: the United States simply did not believe that Putin’s request was sincere, even though the Russian president would really be ready to negotiate about it.
But Putin is also prepared to fight as long as necessary – and Russia can fight as long as necessary
– added the Russian official, referring to the much-publicized commitment to support Ukraine “as long as necessary”. Because of the failure, the Kremlin now sees no point in contacting the Americans, so the war will continue, the Russian sources added.
The news agency contacted the Kremlin, the White House, the US State Department, and the CIA regarding the above, but received no response. According to , this case also indicates how far Russia and the United States are from each other diplomatically.
(Cover photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an interview to US TV host Tucker Carlson in Moscow, Russia on February 6, 2024. Photo: Gavriil Grigorov / Kremlin / Sputnik / )
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