Russian and US officials tacitly discussed several energy agreements when they met in August as part of talks on achieving peace in Ukraine, Reuters wrote on 26 August, citing five unnamed sources familiar with the discussions.
The agreements were offered as an incentive to encourage the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine so Washington could ease sanctions against the Russian leadership, the sources said.
The three Reuters sources said the officials discussed, among other things, the possibility of Exxon Mobil returning to Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. They also raised the possibility of Russia buying American equipment for liquefied natural gas projects. We are talking, for example, about the project” Arctic LNG-2″, which has fallen under sanctions.
Another option of possible agreements is the purchase of nuclear icebreakers from Russia, as Reuters reported earlier.
The talks took place during a visit to Moscow in the first half of August by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who held meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his investment representative Kirill Dmitriev.
The agreements were also noted to have been briefly discussed during the US-Russia summit in Alaska on 15 August.
“Trump and his national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials to hold a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war,” a White House official said in response to a question about the deals. The Trump administration added that it was not in the national interest to discuss the topic further in public.
A spokesman for Kirill Dmitriev declined to comment. Exxon Mobil had the same reaction to the agency’s enquiry. “Rosneft” and “Novatek” did not respond to requests for comment.
US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly declared his readiness to facilitate a speedy end to Russia’s war against Ukraine, has launched active efforts to organise a face-to-face meeting between Ukrainian and Russian presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin after the Alaska summit.
Moscow says Putin is ready for talks with Zelensky, but only when the conditions are right for their meeting.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeated Moscow’s position more than once in recent days in its doubts about the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky due to the fact that Ukraine did not hold new elections for the head of state last year. The Ukrainian constitution does not allow voting to take place in conditions of hostilities.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that Russia is now doing everything to prevent his talks with Vladimir Putin from taking place and does not want to end the war.