Russia and the United States have discussed the “next steps” of how to end the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Sunday, hours after Kyiv’s European allies urged Moscow to commit to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
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The United States this week proposed the halt in fighting in the more than three-year war after talks in Saudi Arabia, which Kyiv agreed to.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given no clear answer, instead listing a string of conditions and raising “serious questions” over the proposal.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused the Kremlin of not wanting to end the war and warned that Moscow wanted to first “improve their situation on the battlefield” before agreeing to any ceasefire.
Moscow said on Sunday that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and that the pair had discussed “concrete aspects of the implementation of understandings” at a US-Russia summit in Saudi Arabia last month.
The February Riyadh gathering was the first high-level meeting between the United States and Russia since Moscow launched its invasion.