Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that President Vladimir Putin had made clear talks with Ukraine are now impossible following the Ukrainian assault on Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
“The president said it very clearly that following attacks, or even incursion, on the Kursk Region, any talks are impossible,” Lavrov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
Ukrainian officials have suggested the purpose of the invasion of Kursk was to gain leverage for future negotiations with Russia, but Moscow’s reaction to the incursion signals that the assault would only delay peace talks.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Russia and Ukraine were due to hold indirect negotiations in Qatar on a potential agreement to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure, but it was derailed by the Kursk offensive.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova appeared to deny the Post report, saying Russia was not involved in any “direct or indirect” talks with Ukraine that could have been derailed by the Kursk offensive. Lavrov mentioned the report but only denied rumors that Russia and Ukraine had any “clandestine contacts” ahead of talks that were supposed to be brokered by Qatar.
Ahead of Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, Zelensky signaled he was open to holding peace talks with Russia, which was a significant shift in his position. He previously rejected the idea of diplomacy with Moscow unless Russia withdrew from the territory it had captured in Ukraine, as well as Crimea.
Russia expressed an openness to Zelensky’s new willingness to talk, but now Russian officials view the comments as a ploy since they were made as Ukraine was preparing the Kursk offensive.
Russia and Ukraine have not engaged in any talks on a potential ceasefire since the early days of the invasion. A peace deal was on the table during negotiations in March and April 2022, but diplomacy was discouraged by the US and its allies, which promised to fund the Ukrainian war effort.
The US war against Russia, China and Iran is progressing as per plan. My guess is the real fireworks will begin after the federal elections.
Food for thought…?…….
Chinese Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence;
Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
What Plan…? Bullying is not plan…!
That is false. There was nothing to gain militarily by the border in Kursk. The reason was to take the nuclear power plant near Kursk on the first day and use it to blackmail Russia. They failed, so then they lie to cover their failure.
That is ridiculous. Russia loses nothing from Ukraine's pinprick attacks with drones on its enormous power infrastructure. By contrast the attacks on Ukraine's power distribution has been devastating, with power outages several hours a day, disrupting work. Many of the Ukrainians living off European taxpayers now cite the power outages as the reason for leaving.
Exactly, so why do you mention the fake talks first? The "negotiations" were spread by Ukraine and its allied pro-Biden media to make it look like they'd damaged Russia's power supply as much as Russia has damaged Ukraine's.
It's part of the constant false claims meant to make Europeans think that Ukraine is winning and Russia's economy is failing, and to make Russia's friends around the world put pressure on them. As Simplicicus the Thinker correctly writes on his Substack.
Nonsense. It's part of Ukraine's attempts at stalling because they are losing ground every day. Which is why Russia rejected them. Russia has made clear that they will have peace any day, as long as the murderers in Kiev stop their shelling of Donbass civilians with U.S. shells, and stop trying to invade Russian Donbass to kill and ethnically cleanse the Russian people.
We like to pull RTP (responsibility to protect) out of our figurative *sses as an excuse to go into other countries. Russia invaded to protect Russian-speaking people in the Donbas, people who had endured shelling by Kiev for 8 years, leading to the deaths of 14,000.
"The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Russia and Ukraine were due to hold indirect negotiations in Qatar on a potential agreement to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure, but it was derailed by the Kursk offensive. " It was derailed by the U.S. and NATO. There is no way Kiev came up with the incursion idea on their own. It is like Netanyahu coming up with additional demands to derail negotiations there.
Indeed that is also my understanding here why the Russians now say any negotations of any kind are now off the table, but that the message is not directed at the West, not directed at the US, EU or even Ukraine, but at Russia's BRICS partners and especially India and China. It is not the US, EU or Ukraine that needs to understand that to the full extent that Russia means it (meaning the complete demolition of Ukraine as a viable state), because they intend it be that way in the first place.