LONDON: Envoys from Washington, Kyiv and European nations gathered for talks in Britain on Wednesday amid a new US push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, where a brief Easter truce was shattered by fresh air strikes.
US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff is to visit Moscow this week, the White House has confirmed, in what would be his fourth trip to Russia since Trump took office.
The London meeting comes as US media reported that US President Donald Trump is ready to accept recognition of annexed land in Crimea as Russian territory.
The reports said the proposal was first raised at a similar meeting with European nations in Paris last week. Trump has since threatened to “take a pass” on efforts to end the conflict unless progress is made quickly.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy will lead Wednesday’s talks, which will be attended by US Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg and Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Ukraine will be represented by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.
New strikes
Russia resumed air strikes on Ukraine this week following a brief Easter truce.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that his country was only ready for direct talks with Russia after a ceasefire.
The Kremlin has warned that it cannot rush into a ceasefire deal.
A Russian drone strike on a bus transporting workers in the southeastern city of Marganets killed at least nine people and wounded at least 30 more, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor said on Wednesday.
Ukrainian authorities also reported strikes in the regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava and Odesa.
In Russia, one person was reported wounded by shelling in the Belgorod region.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to strike a deal between Moscow and Kyiv in 24 hours but has since failed to secure concessions from Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt his troops in Ukraine.
The Republican leader said at the weekend he hoped an agreement could be struck “this week” despite no sign of the two sides coming close to a ceasefire, let alone a wider long-term settlement.
US, French and British foreign ministers, along with a senior German official, met in Paris last Thursday to discuss events.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had presented a US plan to end the war but no details were given. Rubio also discussed the plan with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, during a telephone conversation after the Paris meeting.
Rubio and Trump have warned since the Paris talks that the United States could walk away from peace talks unless it saw quick progress.
The secretary of state said in Paris last week he would go to London if he thought his attendance could be useful, although no planned trip has been announced.
Trump “wants to see this war end, and he wants to stop the killing on both sides of this war, and he’s been very clear about that for quite some time, and he has grown frustrated with both sides of this war, and he’s made that very known”, his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
‘Long-term’
Wednesday’s Ukraine negotiations are less high-level than last week’s Paris talks.
UK Defence Minister John Healey told parliament that ministers and officials would discuss “what a ceasefire might look like and how to secure peace in the long-term” when they meet.
Trump proposed an unconditional ceasefire in March, the principle of which was accepted by Kyiv but rejected by Putin.
The White House welcomed a separate agreement by both sides to halt attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days, but the Kremlin has said it considers that moratorium to have expired.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot hailed the Paris talks as a breakthrough because the United States, Ukraine, and European ministers had “gathered around the same table” when Europe had previously feared it would be excluded from decision-making.
European leaders are also scrambling to work out how to support Ukraine should Trump pull Washington’s vital military and financial backing.
