Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters yesterday that Brussels and Kiev are trying to sabotage the implementation of understandings that the U.S. and Russia reached at the Anchorage summit on Aug. 15. “We expect the U.S. administration to continue its efforts in line with the understandings and groundwork laid at the crucial meeting between the Presidents in Alaska. And we assume that there will be no deviations from these understandings. We expect that this is how the situation will ultimately be perceived in Kiev and in European capitals, which are conducting outright sabotage today; there is no other way to describe their actions,” he said in response to a question from TASS about the current state of dialogue with Washington, reported TASS.
Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not ruled out meeting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy but it should serve as the final stage of meaningful diplomacy beforehand. Peskov stressed that the Russian President remains open to bilateral talks with Zelenskyy. “He does not rule out the possibility of holding such a meeting, but believes that any summit meeting should be well prepared so that it can finalize the work that must first be carried out at an expert level,” said Peskov. Preparation for such a meeting is not “very active,” he stated, remarking that Moscow maintains “interest and readiness for negotiations.”
Peskov also stressed the need for ongoing peace talks, following Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska, to stay confidential. “We are deliberately not disclosing all the details of the conversation between the two Presidents, which took place in Alaska,” where “the topic of Ukrainian settlement was discussed in depth,” he declared.
