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Russia aims to make 'some progress' during upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia

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Russia aims to make 'some progress' during upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia
Flag of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 7, 2024. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Moscow is hoping for "some progress" in upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia, a Russian negotiator told state media ahead of Monday’s meetings between U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian delegations.

The U.S. is engaging in what U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg described as "shuttle diplomacy" to seek a resolution to the full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year, but Russia has already rejected a proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire, instead offering only to halt aerial strikes on energy facilities.

A Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia late on March 21, mere days before the upcoming talks, killed a family of three, drawing sharp condemnation from Ukrainian officials. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 179 drones in its latest wave of overnight attacks.

Russian senator Grigory Karasin, who will lead Moscow’s delegation, told local Zvezda TV that he and FSB advisor Sergey Beseda would enter the negotiations with a "combative and constructive" approach. He did not specify what kind of progress Russia hoped to achieve.

The selection of negotiators has raised questions, as neither Karasin nor Beseda are from Russia’s key diplomatic institutions such as the Kremlin, foreign ministry, or defense ministry.

Ukraine has accused Russia of insincerity in peace efforts, pointing to continued strikes despite President Vladimir Putin’s recent claim that he ordered a halt to attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, White House envoy Steve Witkoff, a close Trump ally, praised Putin in an interview with Tucker Carlson on March 22, calling him a "great" leader seeking to end the war. "I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy," Witkoff said. "That is a complicated situation, including war and all the ingredients that led up to it. It's never just one person."

‘They are Russian-speaking, and there have been referendums,’ — Witkoff parrots Russian propaganda, legitimizing Putin’s claims in Ukraine
U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who recently emerged as a leading figure in negotiations regarding Russia and Ukraine, revealed insights into ongoing ceasefire talks between Moscow and Washington. In an interview on March 21 with American far-right political commentator Tucker…
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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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