The Kremlin said that the consistency of Moscow’s position on US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to stop Russian and Ukrainian troops at the current line of contact to start negotiations remains unchanged.
“This topic has been repeatedly raised, touched upon with different nuances in the course of Russian-American contacts, and the Russian side has each time given an answer and this answer is well known: the consistency of the Russian Federation’s position does not change,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, as quoted by Interfax news agency.
As for Trump’s statement that he proposes as a first step to start peace talks a ceasefire along the entire line of contact and a halt of troops at current positions, the Kremlin spokesman said, “Well, this is a newspaper report, in general there have been many statements on this subject.”
At the same time, Peskov claims that Kiev’s position on the peace settlement is contradictory, and this, he said, does not contribute to the settlement process.
“The position of the Russian Federation and Putin is consistent and well known,” he added.
Earlier, the media reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump on 16 October demanded that Ukraine completely give up the Donetsk region, calling it a condition for the cessation of hostilities.
Reuters also reported, citing two unnamed sources with knowledge of the discussions, that the US president pushed the Ukrainian president to hand over certain territories to Russia during their meeting on 17 October.
US President Donald Trump later said he did not suggest Zelensky give Russia all of Donbass during recent talks in Washington.
“Let it be divided the way it is now. I think 78% of the territory has already been taken over by Russia,” Trump said on 19 October.
After meeting with Zelensky on 17 October, US President Trump wrote on social media that he told both Zelensky and Putin that “it’s time to stop the killing and make a deal.” He added that “they have to stop where they are”.