A senior aide to President Vladimir Putin has rejected any temporary cease-fire with Ukraine just hours before a US delegation was expected to land in Russia for talks with Moscow where they will urge the Kremlin to agree to a 30-day cease-fire proposal or face sanctions.
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Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said in an interview broadcast on state television on March 13 that U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed cease-fire, which Kyiv has agreed to, would only give Ukraine time to recover from pressure Russia has been exerting on its troops.
"I have stated our position that this is nothing other than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more," said Ushakov, Ushakov, who has more than half a century of involvement in diplomacy and is considered to be the Kremlin's chief foreign policy adviser.
He added that he had laid out Moscow's position in a phone call to US national-security adviser Mike Waltz a day earlier.
"It seems to me that no one needs any steps that (merely) imitate peaceful actions in this situation," he said, noting that Russia wants a long-term settlement that addresses its interests and concerns into account.
During a March 12 White House meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, Trump expressed confidence about securing a cease-fire for Ukraine and said that U.S. negotiators were “traveling to Russia right now, as we speak.”
On March 13, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the US team reportedly headed up by Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was on its way.
Trump had earlier told reporters that Russia "has no way out but cease-fire. If needed, we will sanction it, but I hope we won't need to."
The US President has made ending Russia's more than three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine a top priority since taking office for a second term less tha...
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