On April 15, the special envoy of US President Donald Trump - Mr. Steve Witkoff - participated in an interview with Fox News to share details about the direct exchange lasting nearly 5 hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Peterburg last week.
Mr. Witkoff rated the meeting as "impressive", and said that this was a "breakthrough" in the Ukrainian peace negotiation process. The third 11.4 meeting marked Witkoff to meet the Russian president since February.
According to Witkoff, President Putin is aiming for a long -term solution to end the conflict in Ukraine - not only stop at a ceasefire, but also include many legal binding agreements.
The Witkoff special envoy said the recognition of Crimea, two regions of the People's Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhia areas, are part of Russia's territory that needs to be considered a core condition in building any agreement with Moscow.
However, the proposal of peace not only revolves around the territory. Mr. Witkoff said that security issues and many other details also need to be handled. "This is a complicated situation," he said.
Even so, Mr. Witkoff still expressed his hope of the prospect that the US and Russia could reach an agreement "really meaningful to the whole world".
Russia repeatedly affirmed its readiness to negotiate peace, provided that their key security requirements were met. Moscow completely opposed all NATO's presence in Ukraine, and requested Kiev Demandization, maintaining the current neutral position and recognizing the current "territorial reality".
The Russian government claims that there will be no scenario to "freeze conflict", because it only increases the risk of returning in the future. Moscow cited Kiev in violation of an agreement to suspend attacks on energy infrastructure - which proposed by the US - as a testament showed that Ukraine was unreliable.
Also on April 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow would not easily agree with the key terms of the peace agreement proposed by Washington, and confirmed that Russia would never let the economy fall into a state of dependence on the West again.
In an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, Mr. Lavrov emphasized that Russia is ready to reach an agreement if the conditions bring real benefits to both sides. But also warns, Moscow will not accept any proposal that may cause this country to be disadvantage or lead in unwanted direction.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that although there is no "clear lines" of an agreement, both Russia and the US show "political goodwill" to continue diplomatic exchanges. Mr. Peskov affirmed that Moscow highly appreciated the "construction and actual" contact with the US.
