Kyiv has confirmed its readiness to sit down for negotiations with Moscow and Washington to resolve the conflict, reports infohub.kz.
Sergey Kislitsa, deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, said in an interview with the Ukrinform news agency that the Ukrainian side is open to dialogue. "We have said openly and continue to say: we are ready to sit down at the negotiating table, ready to listen to the American side, talk to the Russians and present our arguments on why this war should end," he stressed.
Kislitsa noted that diplomacy must work "under any circumstances," and that stopping diplomatic efforts "would be wrong and dangerous." He also said that the possible visit to Kyiv of US President's special envoy Steven Witkoff and White House adviser Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, is a pressing issue. According to him, they promised to come, but the visit has been postponed. "First they promised April 1, then when Steve Witkoff was at a meeting at the White House on July 28, they promised again. Well, we'll see... We believe that the American side can really influence the intensity of this negotiation process, so we count on them," Kislitsa said.
He clarified that the Ukrainian side is in regular contact with Witkoff and Kushner, but there are "issues that cannot be discussed over open or closed communication lines." Therefore, "we need to sit down and talk, looking each other in the eye," he added.
Meanwhile, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that at this stage, the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine is ruled out. "At the moment, due to Kyiv's position, there are no prerequisites for optimism regarding a peaceful settlement; the dynamics at the front are well known," he said at a meeting with journalists.