KYIV, Ukraine(National times)- A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine pick up speed. But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials still haven\u2019t seen a U.S. peace proposal, even though representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine held talks earlier this week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. \u201cContact is ongoing, including via telephone, but no one has yet sat down at a roundtable and discussed this point by point. That hasn\u2019t happened,\u201d Ushakov told Russian state media. Ukrainian officials didn\u2019t confirm whether U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who in recent weeks has played a high-profile role in the peace efforts, would be in Kyiv in the coming days, as U.S. President Donald Trump indicated Tuesday. Trump\u2019s plan for ending the war became public last week, setting off a spate of diplomatic maneuvering. The initial version appeared heavily slanted toward Russian demands for halting Moscow\u2019s invasion of its neighbor. After weekend talks in Geneva between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the plan could be \u201cworkable,\u201d although key points remain unresolved. A Ukrainian official said that Zelenskyy hoped to meet with Trump in the coming days. Witkoff\u2019s role in the peace efforts came under a renewed spotlight Tuesday when a report indicated that he coached Ushakov, the Putin aide, on how Russia\u2019s leader should pitch Trump on the Ukraine peace plan. Trump described Witkoff\u2019s reported approach to the Russians in the call as \u201cstandard\u201d negotiating procedure. \u201cHe\u2019s got to sell this to Ukraine. He\u2019s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,\u201d Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to his home in Florida on Tuesday night. \u201cThat\u2019s what a dealmaker does.\u201d Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that he \u201cwouldn\u2019t exaggerate (the) significance\u201d of the leaked call, Russian state news outlet Tass reported. However, \u201cit\u2019s clear that there will be a very large number of people in various countries, including the United States, who will try to disrupt these efforts toward peace,\u201d Peskov said from Kyrgyzstan, where Putin traveled this week. Asked whether a peace agreement had never been closer, Peskov told reporters, \u201cIt\u2019s a little too early to say that,\u201d according to Tass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian drones hit Ukraine university dorm
Russia\u2019s grim war of attrition in Ukraine continued as a backdrop to the diplomatic jockeying, with civilian areas once again struck. The southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia came under a large Russian drone attack overnight, damaging more than 50 residential buildings, including a university dormitory filled with people, the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, said Wednesday. The attack wounded at least 19 people, he said. Russian air defenses, meanwhile, downed 33 Ukrainian drones overnight over various Russian regions and the Black Sea, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. European countries, which are alarmed by Russia\u2019s aggression and see their own future at stake in negotiations over Ukraine, are fighting to make their voices heard in the talks as Washington takes the lead. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that Europe wants the war to end as quickly as possible. \u201cBut an agreement negotiated by great powers without the approval of the Ukrainians and without the approval of the Europeans won\u2019t be a basis for a real, sustainable peace in Ukraine,\u201d Merz told lawmakers in Berlin. \u201cEurope is not a plaything, but a sovereign actor for its own interests and values.\u201d The head of the European Union\u2019s executive, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, was upbeat about recent developments, saying there is \u201can opportunity here to make real progress\u201d toward peace. She insisted that any settlement must include future security guarantees for Ukraine. At the same time, she said that a deal can\u2019t contain limitations on Ukraine\u2019s armed forces or block its path to NATO membership. Those limits were part of the initial proposal. \u201cAs a sovereign nation, there can be no limitations on Ukraine\u2019s armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to future attacks,\u201d she said during a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. \u201cThis is as much about deterrence as it is about Europe\u2019s security, because Ukraine\u2019s security is Europe\u2019s security.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine(National times)- A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine pick up speed. But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n