'Russia owes an answer to the US' — West pushes Putin on ceasefire deal
After convening in Brussels on April 3 and 4, NATO's representatives are demanding an immediate response from Russian President Vladimir Putin to a ceasefire deal that the U.S. and Ukraine have already agreed to.
“Today, Russia owes an answer to the U.S.,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, per Bloomberg. “It has to be yes, it has to be no — it has to be a quick answer.”
“The ball clearly is in the court of the Russians,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told CBS' Face the Nation. “They are not moving fast enough, is my impression, including the impression I’m getting from my American interlocutors, that Russia really has to do more to bring this war to an end. The Ukrainians are really close to the American position.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after the NATO convention, "the message is, the United States needs to know whether you’re serious or not about peace. Ultimately, Putin will have to make that decision."
The Kremlin's lead negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, recently teased "significant progress" on the ceasefire deal. Delegations from the U.S. and Ukraine originally hashed out a general ceasefire agreement early in March, but the Kremlin has dug its heels in.
Putin's lack of cooperation and continued attacks, both aerial and political, on Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have increasingly angered U.S. President Donald Trump in the past two weeks.
