(Newsweek) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the U.S. is not taking into account Russia’s “main demand” to secure peace in its war on Ukraine, and so the Kremlin “cannot accept” American proposals as things stand.
U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, and has so far secured partial ceasefires in the Black Sea and against energy infrastructure. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“We have not heard from Trump a signal to Kyiv to end the war,” Ryabkov told Russia’s International Affairs magazine in an interview.
“All that we have today is an attempt to find a certain scheme that would first allow us to achieve a ceasefire, as it is conceived by the Americans.
“And then move on to some other models and schemes, in which, as far as we can judge, today there is no place for our main demand, namely, the solution of problems related to the root causes of this conflict.”
Russia first annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and invaded parts of the country’s Russian-speaking east to stop its westward drift. Ukraine, a former Soviet state, aspires to join the NATO defensive alliance and the European Union (EU).
Some NATO allies are former Soviet states and see it as a vital safeguard against Russian aggression, a protection Ukraine also desires. For Moscow, Ukraine joining the U.S.-led NATO is a red line. It views NATO as a threat to its security.
“This is completely absent, and it must be overcome. We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously, but we cannot accept all this as it is,” Rybakov said in the interview.
“We certainly have a deeply and carefully thought-out set of our own priorities and approaches to this topic, which is being worked out and worked out, including by our negotiating team at the recent talks with the Americans in Riyadh.”
In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” with Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s recent suggestion that Ukraine should implement a transitional government as any part of a ceasefire deal.
It would essentially push Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky out of power, and Trump rejected the idea. He also had a warning for Putin.
“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault—which it might not be—but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said.
“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” the president added. “There will be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
