With Putin–Zelenskyy meeting in limbo, Moscow rejects European security plans, praises Trump | World News
Amid rising uncertainty over Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s face-to-face talks, Kremlin Wednesday said that it takes a “negative view” of European proposals on security guarantees for Ukraine and will not accept any NATO troop presence there.US President Donald Trump’s back-to-back meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy earlier this month raised hopes of the first face-to-face talks between the two leaders. But those hopes faded on Monday as Trump admitted he was uncertain whether such a meeting would take place, saying he believed Putin’s dislike of Zelenskyy was holding up direct talks.
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“He doesn’t like him,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov praised Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine as “very important,” adding Moscow hoped they would continue. However, when asked about Ukraine’s European allies drafting guarantees to shield Kyiv from possible future Russian attacks, Peskov said a European troop deployment would effectively mean NATO in Ukraine — something Russia has opposed from the start.
“In fact, at the very beginning, it was the advancement of NATO military infrastructure and the infiltration of this military infrastructure into Ukraine that could probably be named among the root causes of the conflict situation that arose,” Peskov told reporters.
“So we have a negative attitude towards these discussions.”
Russia inss it should be a guarantor of Ukraine’s security, reviving a 2022 proposal Kyiv rejected as giving Moscow a veto over outside support.
Peskov said guarantees were “one of the most important topics” but “not helpful” to discuss publicly. He also called this month’s US-Russia summit in Alaska between Trump and President Vladimir Putin “very substantive, constructive and useful.”
Trump has ruled out US ground troops in Ukraine but left open options for air and intelligence support. Peskov said Russian and Ukrainian negotiators remain in contact, though no new meeting date is set.
Meanwhile, Ukraine on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that Russian forces had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central adminrative area that until now had largely been spared from heavy fighting.
“Yes, they have entered, and fighting is ongoing as of now,” said Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian forces in Dnipro, the country’s fourth-largest city.
Russia has been advancing gradually in recent months, capturing devastated areas in eastern and southern Ukraine where little remains of towns or infrastructure.
Ukraine’s general staff, however, denied Moscow’s claims to have seized the villages of Zaporizke and Novogeorgiivka, located just inside Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Independent battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties to the Ukrainian military, reported that Russian forces had “occupied” the two settlements and were “consolidating positions [and] accumulating infantry for a further advance.”
Dnipropetrovsk is not among the five Ukrainian regions that Moscow has annexed – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea.
