KEY POINTS
- Russia and US to set dates for future talks
- US envoy confirmed that talks on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire would continue on Sunday in Saudi Arabia
- The Kremlin clarified that Putin only agreed to pause strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure
- Ukraine accuses Russia of rejecting ceasefire
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia and the United States will decide on dates for future talks in the coming days, after a call between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“Both today and tomorrow, there will be additional agreements on the exact, precise dates,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about future talks with the US.
Peskov said that Putin had only agreed to halt strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said the two leaders agreed to a ceasefire on “infrastructure in general.”
Asked if the ceasefire is for strikes on energy targets or all infrastructure, Peskov said: “On energy infrastructure facilities.”
Witkoff said Tuesday that talks on a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine will continue on Sunday in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
In an interview with Fox News hours after Trump held a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said talks on a ceasefire deal “will begin on Sunday in Jeddah.”
Witkoff said the US delegation in Saudi Arabia would be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, but did not indicate who they would be holding talks with.
Referring to a ceasefire on energy infrastructure and targets in the Black Sea, Witkoff said: “I think both of those are now agreed to by the Russians. I am certainly hopeful that the Ukrainians will agree to it.”
Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of effectively rejecting the US-backed ceasefire proposal.
The Kremlin accused Kyiv of countering US-Russia efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying it had tried to strike Russian energy infrastructure despite Putin and Trump agreeing a halt to such attacks.
“Unfortunately, so far there has been no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime. There were attempts to strike our energy infrastructure,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“These attacks are countering our common (Russian-American) efforts.”
Washington has been pushing for a full, 30-day ceasefire as a first step towards a wider settlement of the grinding three-year-old war.
ALSO READ: Putin Agrees to Pause Strikes on Ukraine Energy Targets
In a 90-minute call with Trump on Tuesday, Russian President Putin refused, insisting that any such deal would be contingent on Ukraine’s allies halting all military aid.
According to the Kremlin, Putin has already ordered his military to pause strikes against Ukrainian energy targets for 30 days.
Witkoff, however, reiterated that the proposed ceasefire included “energy and infrastructure in general.”
Trump’s envoy commended Russian President Putin “for all he did today on that call to move his country close to a final peace deal.”
Witkoff said that with consensus around energy and infrastructure targets as well as those in the Black Sea, he believed “it’s a relatively short distance to a full ceasefire from there.”
The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump “trust each other and are intent to gradually move towards the normalisation of ties” more than three years into Moscow’s offensive.
Peskov said the phone call between Trump and Putin lasted around two hours and that the pair had also discussed military aid to Ukraine, without giving details as “it is quite a sensitive topic and probably should not be discussed in public”.
