Moscow sees no point in continuing the trilateral contacts with Ukraine and the US until Kiev makes “one serious step,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said. The senior official was apparently referring to the withdrawal of the Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donbass still under Ukrainian control, a move long-demanded by Russia and consistently rejected by Kiev.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Ushakov admitted that the US-mediated contacts with Ukraine have halted to a grind following the latest meeting that was held in Geneva in February. Since then, the “American participants have been preoccupied with a different, more serious problem,” he added, apparently referring to the crisis in the Middle East.
The discussions have effectively boiled down to “one serious step” Kiev must take to greatly advance the settlement process. While Ushakov did not explicitly name said step, he was likely referring to the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from parts of Donbass they still control.
“Everyone understands, including, I would say, Ukrainian negotiators, that Kiev now needs to take just one serious step, after which, firstly, military action will cease, and secondly, prospects for serious discussions of a further long-term resolution of this issue will open,” Ushakov stated.
The status of Donbass, which voted to join Russia in 2022, has remained one of the key obstacles to peace negotiations, with Moscow and Kiev maintaining opposing positions on the matter. Russia has repeatedly outlined Ukraine’s full withdrawal from the region as an essential step for reaching a lasting ceasefire and paving the way for further discussions of a sustainable settlement.
The Ukrainian leadership, however, has repeatedly refused to cede any territory and has maintained that recapturing the regions incorporated into Russia remains one of its ultimate goals. In March, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Washington had pressed Kiev into accepting Moscow’s terms, allegedly making its offer of security guarantees to Ukraine conditional on it ceding all the contested territory in Donbass to Russia. Washington, however, has dismissed such claims, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing Zelensky’s assertions as a “lie.”