WASHINGTON — A day after President Biden said he was willing to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible peace deal in Ukraine, the Kremlin gave a tepid response, and prospects for settling the brutal conflict are as remote as ever.
Mr. Biden said Thursday he would have his first conversation with Mr. Putin since before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 if the Russian leader was “looking for a way to end the war.” But U.S. officials said Russia, as they previously assessed, is not willing to negotiate in good faith, and Russian officials have repeated hard-line demands that Kyiv does not accept.
Although Mr. Biden’s remarks were seen by some as a reaffirmation of a move toward peace talks with Russia, John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters that Mr. Biden’s position had not changed.
“The president has been very consistent about that,” Mr. Kirby said. He has no intention of talking to Mr. Putin now. As he also said, Putin has shown absolutely no inclination to be interested in dialogue of any kind. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything he does shows that Mr. Putin is interested in continuing this illegal and unjustified war.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov, at a news conference on Friday, said Putin remained “open to contacts and negotiations” and that diplomacy was the “preferred way” to achieve Russia’s goals.
But Mr. Peskov noted that the US “still does not recognize new territories as part of Russia,” an apparent reference to regions of eastern Ukraine that Mr. Putin has claimed after Fake referendums in Septembersaying that “this further complicates the search for common ground for mutual discussions”.
In fact, the Russian position essentially excludes serious negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said V.I Mid-November interview According to Bloomberg News, the war cannot end until Ukraine takes back all of its territory from Russia, including the allegedly annexed areas as well as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
“The Russians have made clear that they are, of course, not in the mood for constructive dialogue and constructive diplomacy,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news conference. He added that any conversation between Biden and Putin “is nothing more than a virtual conversation at this time.”
“We have been very clear that the United States and the countries of the world will never — never, ever — recognize the territories that Russia illegally annexed, whether in 2014 or more recently, as part of its now illegal and brutal aggression against Ukraine,” Mr. Price added.
Mr. Biden’s comment — made during a news conference with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron, who has spoken to Mr. Putin several times over the past year, including in late August — comes after some indication that senior US officials have considered whether the attacks progressed. Successful negotiation window. Last month, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, told reporters that Ukraine’s “strong” stance creates “Possibility” for a political solution.
But Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served as NATO’s secretary general from 2009 to 2014, said this week during a visit to Washington that he had spoken with Biden administration officials and saw no sign of them pressuring the Ukrainian government to start negotiating with Russia.
“It was an idea that had just been floated, but it was promptly shut down,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “It would really weaken the Western Front if we tried to push Zelensky into early peace negotiations, because that would be a trap.”
Mr. Rasmussen added: “Putin is not sincere when it comes to peace negotiations.”
Ukrainian officials said the same, warning that Russia might try to pause the fighting for the sake of talks — but only to use that time to prepare for new military offensives.
Mr. Macron reaffirmed France’s support for Ukraine and nodded to the fact that the Ukrainian population, enraged by the Russian occupation, is in no mood to make concessions. He said France would “never urge the Ukrainians to make a compromise that would be unacceptable to them”.
On Friday, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure targets such as power grids “make any kind of dialogue impossible.”
“We all want peace,” Tajani said, “but it must come through Kyiv’s independence, not through its surrender.” Responsibility for this situation rests solely with Russia. Now the Kremlin should give concrete signals instead of bombing the population.”
White House officials said they were not surprised by Russia’s reaction to Biden’s remarks. Few members of the president’s national security team expected anything different from Mr. Putin, given Russia’s behavior in the past several weeks, which has included strikes on infrastructure targets that have deprived major cities including Kyiv of heat, light and running water.
Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken at a NATO meeting in Romania on Wednesday: “This brutal treatment of the people of Ukraine is brutal.”
The officials said Mr. Biden’s remark about talking to Mr. Putin was not intended to signal a policy shift or suggest that the president was deviating from his commitment to ensuring that Ukraine’s leadership decided when and how to negotiate an end to the war.
Aides say the president still believes negotiations will be necessary. But they also say he does not believe direct talks with Mr. Putin will be possible unless “the facts on the ground” change.
In his remarks on Thursday, Biden was careful to show respect for Ukraine and its NATO allies, saying he would only speak to Mr. Putin after consulting with them first.
In part, the letter was meant to show support for diplomacy by his counterparts. Mr. Macron stressed the importance of continuing dialogue with the Russian leader, even if to avoid dangerous escalations or miscalculations. He called Mr. Putin in August and is expected to meet with him in a few days. Olaf Schultz, German Chancellor, Talk to the Russian president on Friday morning.
a Kremlin readings Of the call with Mr. Schulz he blamed the West for the absence of talks, saying that the Western approach of “pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons” and providing it with financial and political support “leads Kyiv to reject any idea of negotiations”.
But there are other audiences to consider, too. Some leaders worry about the economic effects of the war, which has sent food and energy prices soaring around the world. And in the United States, some progressive Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed frustration that the Biden administration, which has provided nearly $20 billion in military aid to Kyiv since the Russian invasion, appears to be writing “blank checks” without describing the endgame. dispute.
White House officials said the president’s comment about his willingness to meet with Putin under certain circumstances was not directed directly at those groups. But the note nonetheless indicates that the Biden administration has not blocked the possibility of diplomacy, even though Mr. Biden has not spoken to Mr. Putin since mid-February.
Mr. Blinken has spoken to his counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, only once since mid-January, to discuss the possible release of two Americans imprisoned in Russia, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner. Biden also said in October that he would be willing to talk to Mr. Putin about releasing the Americans.
Speaking a day before Biden’s remarks, Rasmussen, the former NATO chief, said he did not think Ukraine would accept a peace deal that would allow Russia to occupy any part of its territory.
“I can confidently conclude that as long as you will see Russian forces on Ukrainian soil, there will be conflict,” he said. “The only way out for Putin is to get out of Ukraine.”
Elisabetta Povoledo Contribute to the preparation of reports.
