KYIV — Ukraine’s foreign minister Friday accused Russia of stalling peace negotiations, saying that Moscow had yet to share a promised memorandum outlining its peace terms. He said Kyiv wanted to see thedocument before sending a delegation to a new round of talks Moscow had proposed for Monday in Istanbul.
The minister, Andrii Sybiha, said at a news conference in Kyiv that for any meeting to be “substantive and meaningful,” Ukraine needed “to receive a document in advance so that the delegation that will attend has the authority to discuss the relevant positions.”
Sybiha’s remarks came as both Ukraine and Russia have been maneuvering to set the terms and tempo of peace negotiations, while simultaneously trying to win over the White House, which has threatened to pull out of the talks altogether.
Kyiv’s goal remains to secure a cease-fire first, before moving on to negotiations for a broader peace deal. Russia has shown little interest in a cease-fire. Instead it repeatedly has said that it wants talks to focus on solving the “root causes” of the war — Kremlin parlance for wide-ranging demands like a commitment not to expand NATO eastward, an objective that Kyiv and its allies see as a way to subjugate Ukraine.
Both sides agreed to share their peace terms during a previous round of talks in Istanbul this month that yielded a large prisoner exchange, but little else.
Kyiv said it had submitted its own peace terms to both Russia and the United States before next week’s potential talks. But Russia has said it will share its memorandum only during the new round of negotiations, prompting Ukraine to accuse it of slow-walking the peace process.
Dmitry S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Friday that the memorandum could not “be made public” and that the Russian delegation would be ready to meet Monday morning in Turkey.
Ukrainian officials have said Russia might try to ambush their delegation by proposing terms that are nonstarters for Kyiv — such as demanding that it withdraws from territories it still controls — and then blame Ukraine for derailing the talks by refusing to engage.
The current diplomatic dance has deepened doubts over whether new talks will take place, and if they do, whether they can produce any meaningful progress toward peace.
During a visit to Kyiv on Friday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of President Trump, dismissed Moscow’s proposal for another meeting in Turkey without a clear agenda as a stalling tactic.
“It’s more of the same with the Russians: Schedule a meeting; drag it out,” he said. “It’s clear to almost anyone Putin is not remotely interested in anything that would lead to peace,” he added, referring to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, confirmed this week that the United States had received Ukraine’s memorandum but was still waiting on Russia’s. Still, he said that Ukrainian authorities should not refuse negotiations even if Russia did not submit its memorandum in advance.
“I always caution, don’t say things like that, because if you don’t show up, you know part of life is showing up,” Kellogg told ABC News on Friday. “You need to show you’re serious.”
Kellogg said Ukraine’s memorandum included 22 terms that he described as “pretty good” and “reasonable.”
A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, said the memorandum included provisions for a cease-fire on land, at sea, and in the air, with monitoring to be carried out by international partners.
Kellogg also told ABC News that Russia’s concerns about NATO’s potential eastward expansion were “fair,” adding that “Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table.”
Ukraine and Georgia were promised eventual membership more than a decade ago, and other countries, such as Moldova, have since voiced interest in joining the Western military alliance.
Peskov lauded Kellogg’s comments, saying they came as a “result of Russia-US talks held behind closed doors.”
Russia is pushing forward again on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, opening a new front further north and ramping up a campaign of bombardment on Ukrainian cities — developments that Ukraine and some Western officials say shows that Moscow is not interested in a cease-fire.
Against that backdrop, Trump accused Putin of “playing with fire” this week and threatened new sanctions against Russia. But after months of alternating praise of the Russian leader with empty threats, it is unclear whether his latest comments will translate into concrete action.
Action may come through the US Senate, where a group of Republicans and Democrats have signed on to legislation that would impose sweeping sanctions on Moscow. The bill now has 82 sponsors, more than enough to override a veto in that chamber, Graham said Friday.
“I would expect next week that the Senate will start moving the sanctions bill,” Graham said, although he declined to say whether the Senate majority leader had agreed to put the bill on the calendar or when he expected it to come to a vote.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Russia appears to launch new offensive in Ukraine amid peace talks Trump rebukes Putin, calling Ukraine attacks ‘absolutely crazy’Germany’s Merz offers to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missiles to hit Russia
