The Kremlin, which denied on Monday that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had spoken to each other, believes it has received “no signal” from the West for discussions on the conflict with Ukraine where Russian strikes continue unabated.
Citing anonymous sources, the Washington Post claimed that the two men had had a first meeting since Donald Trump’s victory in the American presidential election, during which the Republican, who will take office on January 20, would have notably called on the Russian president to not to provoke escalation in Ukraine.
“This absolutely does not correspond to reality, it is a pure invention”, “false information”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told journalists. He added that there were “no concrete plans” for such a discussion that the two men last week said they were willing to have.
A spokesperson for the US president-elect’s transition team indicated in a statement to AFP that they would not “comment on private calls between President Trump and other leaders”.
Asked by AFP, a senior official at the Ukrainian presidency also noted the absence of confirmation of this call or of the fact that it would have been about the conflict in Ukraine.
“For our part we are continuing the special military operation,” warned Dmitri Peskov, using the official Russian term for this conflict.
More than two and a half years after Russia launched its large-scale attack, Moscow, whose troops are advancing, is demanding that Ukraine lay down its arms, cede a large part of its territory and that it renounces his ambition to join NATO. Unacceptable conditions for kyiv.
Handicapped by their inferiority in number of soldiers and quantity of weapons, and by the refusal of the West to let them use the weapons they deliver to them to strike Russia in depth, the Ukrainians have been retreating for several months on multiple sections of the front, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks.
After reciprocal drone attacks on an unprecedented scale this weekend, at least six people were killed overnight from Sunday to Monday and around twenty others injured in Russian attacks in Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia, in the south of Ukraine, according to local authorities.
Towards a major escalation?
More bad news for kyiv, Vladimir Putin signed a mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang on Sunday, which therefore comes into force at the very moment when the West is warning against the major escalation that would represent the engagement of thousands of soldiers in combat. North Koreans.
According to kyiv and Western chancelleries, they are positioned in the Russian region of Kursk, where kyiv has controlled a few hundred square kilometers of territory since August.
The election of Donald Trump, who during his campaign regularly claimed to be able to end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”, also leaves Ukraine and Europeans fearing American disengagement in the months to come.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Donald Trump on Sunday, and both said they were “ready to work together for the return of peace to Europe,” the German government announced.
According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin repeated last week “that he is open to all negotiations” with the West on Ukraine, but “no signal has been sent” by them. here. “If they say that signals will come, we must wait for them,” he insisted.
If Russian officials proclaim their availability to discuss, they repeat that this must be done according to the current “realities” of the front and on their conditions.
“The situation in the theater of hostilities is not in favor of the kyiv regime, the West has a choice: to continue its financing (of Ukraine) and the destruction of the Ukrainian population or to admit the existing realities and begin to negotiate,” said the head of the Russian Security Council and former Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, last week.
From Monday to Tuesday, he is visiting Beijing, Russia’s main supporter in its face-to-face confrontation with the West.
