Ukraine keeps Russia guessing over participation in June 2 peace talks
Ukraine on Friday resisted pressure from Moscow and Washington to commit itself to attending peace talks with Russia on June 2, saying it first needed to see the proposals Russian negotiators plan to bring to the talks.
After US President Donald Trump urged Moscow and Kyiv to work together on a peace deal to end their three-year-old war, Russia proposed sitting down with Ukrainian officials next week in Istanbul.
Kyiv responded by saying it was committed in principle to the search for peace, but that it was waiting for a memorandum from the Russian side setting out their proposals, which it had still not received.
"We are ready for dialogue, but we demand clarity — clear and, most importantly, balanced proposals," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in remarks aired on national television.
The war, the biggest on the European continent since World War 2, began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Expectations for the talks are modest because the positions staked out so far by the two sides are far apart and work between them has yet to begin in earnest on narrowing the gap.
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This is coupled with a deep dissatisfaction with the ANC-led government (even though they are not alone in this) - if one were to keep it dangerously both instances, so much hate, fear and loathing have been outcome was the vitriol spewed in the Oval Office last theories and disinformation have bubbled from below the surface and gained legitimacy in the most powerful corridor in the President Ramaphosa sat next to President Trump in the almost Rococo-like newly-gilded Oval Office (in every way a shallow reflection of Trump himself) while he dimmed the lights to play footage on a big screen allegedly representing "genocide" in South Africa, Trump was conjuring up the very heart of darkness with blacks as savages and whites their horror! The horror!It was all so plainly awful; a white bully schooling a black leader about racism. But this is how power and its supporting structures work. Seeing it play out so crudely was astounding even by Trump's standards. By now, the dust has settled. 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