(Corrects typo in Zelenskyy’s first name in first paragraph, adds TV to media slug.)
LONDON – The Kremlin on Thursday said Moscow was still waiting for Ukraine’s response to Russia’s latest written proposal in peace talks between the two sides, and asked why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was unaware of the document.
Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that he had neither seen nor heard the text that the Kremlin is said to have sent.
“I repeat what I said yesterday, our formulations, actually the latest version, have been handed over to our opponents, the Ukrainian negotiating delegation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov said the Kremlin was aware of Zelenskyy’s comment, “which also raises certain questions as to why no one is reporting our versions of the text to President Zelenskyy.”
The comments from both sides seemed to highlight both the gulf in their positions and the poor state of communications between them, eight weeks after Russia sent its troops and tanks to Ukraine and more than three weeks after they last held face-to-face talks on March 29th
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on April 12 that talks had reached an impasse. Ukraine’s chief negotiator on Tuesday said it was difficult to predict when they might resume because of Russia’s siege of Mariupol, and what he said was Moscow’s desire to strengthen its position with a new military offensive.
Russia says it was forced to launch its “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine and protect Russian-speaking people there from “genocide” – arguments dismissed by Kyiv and the West as unfounded pretexts for to be denounced for a war.
Moscow wants Kyiv to accept the loss of Crimea, which it wrested from Ukraine in 2014, and the eastern Donbass region, which is now the focus of the Russian offensive. Ukraine says it will not compromise on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
(Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)