Russia ready to assist in passage of trade vessels exporting grains from Ukraine to international waters, says spokesman.
US arms deliveries to Ukraine only “add fuel to the fire,” the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
Commenting on a recent decision by the US to provide Kyiv with more advanced rocket systems and munitions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing in Moscow that the US is “following the line of warring with Russia to the last Ukrainian.”
Underlining that such supplies would not serve to push the Ukrainian leadership to resume peace talks, he said Moscow views the decision “negatively.”
The Russian Defense Ministry and other government bodies are assessing the risks and taking the necessary measures, Peskov added.
He also stressed that Moscow has no confidence in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s assurance that Kyiv would not use the multiple rocket launchers, which have extended range, to launch an attack on Russian territory.
“To trust, we need to have experience of cases when these promises were kept. Unfortunately, there is no such experience at all.
“On the contrary, the whole course of events — broken promises, starting with the main election promise of President Zelenskyy to end the war in the southeast of Ukraine once and for all,” Peskov said.
Amid international efforts to quell rising food prices, the Kremlin spokesman said Russia is ready to assist in the passage of trade vessels exporting grains from Ukraine to international waters.
With the food crisis constantly on the agenda, he continued, Türkiye’s initiative to mediate on the issue was met positively by both Moscow and Kyiv.
The sides are still working on the matter, with a final agreement currently out of reach.
– Putin’s upcoming visit to Türkiye
The Kremlin spokesman confirmed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would visit Türkiye in the near future but did not give any details, saying Lavrov would provide them himself.
Asked if the top diplomat’s visit was connected with preparation for a Russia-Ukraine-UN meeting in Istanbul, Peskov said: “All this has one context, all events are connected indirectly.”
“But, there is no clear understanding yet about such a meeting,” he explained.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been also invited to Türkiye by his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, though the exact date, which has yet to be specified, will be set via diplomatic channels, Peskov also noted.
On the possibility of a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, Peskov said that though neither party are ruling out such a meeting in principle, it “has to be prepared.”
“It makes sense for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet only to finalize a certain document (peace treaty) between Russia and Ukraine,” he said, adding that work on such a document “was stopped a long time ago and has not been resumed since.”
-AA