Russia’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on Saturday that some countries will make “titanic efforts” to disrupt the August 15 meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump had said earlier that Russia and Ukraine were close to a ceasefire deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict.
The contents of the deal have yet to be announced, but it could require Ukraine to surrender significant territory – an outcome many European nations oppose. Dmitriev accused unnamed countries of seeking to prolong the war.
“Undoubtedly, a number of countries interested in continuing the conflict will make titanic efforts to disrupt the planned meeting between President Putin and President Trump,” he said in a post in his Telegram account, specifying that by efforts he meant “provocations and disinformation”.
Dmitriev did not specify which countries he was referring to or what kind of “provocations” they might undertake.
The Kremlin earlier confirmed the summit. The two leaders will “focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said, adding: “This will evidently be a challenging process, but we will engage in it actively and energetically.”
Ukraine Won’t Cede Lands
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Ukraine cannot breach its constitution on territorial matters, stressing that “Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers.”
Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready for real solutions that could bring peace. But he added that any solutions without Kyiv would be solutions against peace.
Putin claims four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. His forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions.
Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that U.S. and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would lock in Moscow’s occupation of territory seized during its military invasion.
A White House official said the Bloomberg story was speculation. A Kremlin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters was unable to confirm aspects of the Bloomberg report.
Ukraine had previously signalled a willingness to be flexible in the search for an end to a war that has ravaged its towns and cities and killed large numbers of its soldiers and citizens.
But accepting the loss of around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory would be painful and politically challenging for Zelenskyy and his government.
(With inputs from Reuters)
