Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian National Welfare Fund / Photo: kremlin.ru
Next week, Russia and the United States will hold a new round of talks. This was announced by the Russian President’s Special Representative for Economic Affairs, Kirill Dmitriev, upon his return from Washington, the first visit of a Russian official to the United States since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
Speaking on Russia 1 TV channel Dmitriev said that “a respectful dialogue is beginning” between the two countries and that “positive dynamics” have emerged in relations. According to him, the US side is beginning to realise the need to resume dialogue with the Kremlin after “Russia has withstood an attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on it”.
“The ice has broken,” the Kremlin spokesman said, “There is a slim hope that a real dialogue will be restored.”
However, the tone of Dmitriev’s statements was not without its problems: he pointed to massive “disinformation” that Moscow says is aimed at normalising relations. At the same time, the Donald Trump administration was particularly criticised, which, according to the Kremlin, is being misinformed by third countries.
Dmitriev stressed that “information attacks are aimed at disrupting the diplomatic thaw” between Washington and Moscow, although two days ago Russia launched a powerful missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, killing 19 people, including nine children. Ukraine accused Russia of targeting a residential area, while Moscow said that the attack hit a facility where Ukrainian troops were allegedly meeting with Western instructors.
There is clear tension in Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Brussels, said that Washington expects to know “within weeks, not months” whether Russia is ready to talk seriously about peace. If the Kremlin drags its feet, he warned, “the president will not be prepared to engage in an endless process.”
According to leaks from a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Rubio allegedly made it clear that Trump was losing patience and would soon “no longer play Putin’s game”.
Meanwhile, Russia has publicly rejected the current US proposals to end the war. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the proposals “do not take into account the main causes of the conflict,” in particular, Moscow’s demands to recognise the annexation of part of Ukraine’s territories, provide guarantees that Kyiv will not join NATO, and create a new European security architecture – that is, to implement the requirements that de facto legitimise military aggression.
Thus, despite the diplomatic activity and signals of a “thaw”, it is clear between the lines that the Kremlin is not ready for compromise, and the dialogue is still just an exchange of hard-line positions.
