MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Monday that it would wait to see how talks between the United States and Ukraine on a potential peace plan pan out, and would not be commenting on media reports about such a serious and complex issue.
The United States and Ukraine said in a joint statement after Sunday’s talks in Geneva that they had drafted a “refined peace framework” after an earlier 28-point plan endorsed by the Trump administration was criticised by Kyiv’s allies as too sympathetic to Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that U.S. proposals for peace in Ukraine could be the basis of a resolution of the conflict, but that if Kyiv turned down the plan then Russian forces would advance further.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia had not received any official information about the outcome of the Geneva talks.
“We are, of course, closely monitoring the media reports that have been pouring in from Geneva over the past few days, but we have not yet received anything official,” Peskov told reporters.
“We read a statement that, following the discussions in Geneva, some amendments had been made to the text which we had seen earlier. We will wait. It seems that the dialogue is continuing.”
When asked about a reported change in a clause concerning NATO and Ukraine which appeared to leave the door open to Kyiv joining the U.S.-led military alliance one day, Peskov said that the Kremlin would not be discussing details of any draft agreement based on media reports.
“This is too important and complex an issue to be guided solely by media reports on the matter. Here, it is necessary to rely on information obtained through official channels,” said Peskov.
He said there were no plans yet for a meeting this week between Russian and U.S. negotiators.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Andrew Osborn/Lucy Papachristou, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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