US-Russia talks on Ukraine should be private, Kremlin says
U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine should happen behind closed doors, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Aug. 27 as Moscow continues to stall progress on potential high-level negotiations with Kyiv.
"Discussing specific details out of context and in public would hardly be helpful to the overall outcome of the matter," Peskov told journalists.
The spokesperson's remarks come amid U.S. President Donald Trump's push for a speedy peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Following separate meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this month, Trump said that the next step would be a bilateral summit between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, which he hoped would occur in the next two weeks.
No actual date for direct talks between the two has been set.
When asked, Peskov said that any move to raise the level of Russian and Ukrainian representatives in peace talks would require thorough preparation to ensure effectiveness.
According to him, the heads of the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams remain in contact, but Moscow cannot yet confirm when the next round of talks will take place.
The most recent round of talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place on July 23 in Istanbul. Despite little progress on ending hostilities, the two sides negotiated several prisoner exchanges since restarting discussions.
Zelensky has repeatedly voiced readiness for direct negotiations. On Aug. 18, he said he was prepared to discuss territorial issues with Putin one-on-one.
The meeting would mark the first encounter between Zelensky and Putin since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. The two leaders last met in Paris in December 2019 as part of the Normandy Format talks mediated by France and Germany.
