A special envoy of United States President Donald Trump is visiting Russia, as Washington and Moscow have entered crunch time in hammering a ceasefire deal that would temporarily halt the war in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Thursday that a US delegation will engage in discussions with Russian counterparts, as Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that a plane carrying US envoy Steve Witkoff had landed in Moscow.
The development came as Russia claimed on Thursday to have recaptured key territory in the Kursk region from Ukraine, signalling its upper hand in negotiations.
Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, has been playing a growing role in efforts to bring about an end to the three-year Ukraine war.
Trump said on Wednesday that “it’s up to Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to agree to a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine said it would support.
Peskov would not comment on Moscow’s view of the ceasefire proposal. “Before the talks start, and they haven’t started yet, it would be wrong to talk about it in public,” he told reporters.
However, top Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, told state television that he had spoken to US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to outline Russia’s position on the ceasefire proposal.
“I stated our position that this is nothing other than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more,” said Ushakov, a former ambassador to Washington who speaks for Russian President Vladimir Putin on major foreign policy issues.
“It seems to me that no one needs any steps that [merely] imitate peaceful actions in this situation,” he added on Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the lack of a “meaningful” response to the US ceasefire plan indicated the Kremlin wanted to keep fighting in Ukraine.
“Regrettably, for more than a day already, the world has yet to hear a meaningful response from Russia to the proposals made,” he said. “We hope that US pressure will be sufficient to compel Russia to end the war,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media.
On Wednesday, Peskov said it was important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire proposal and suggested that a phone call between presidents Putin and Trump to discuss the matter could take place.
Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Moscow on Thursday, said Witkoff is due to meet high-level Russian officials, including Putin.
“What we are hearing unofficially is that Russia will likely hand its own list of demands before responding to this 30-day proposal by the Americans. They are going to maintain their position which they did in the past. They want Ukraine to drop its demands to join NATO. They don’t want any foreign troops on Ukrainian territory, and they want recognition of the roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian land that Russia occupies,” she said.
Retaking territory in Kursk
Ahead of the talks, Putin ordered the swift defeat of Ukrainian forces in western Russia, as the Ministry of Defence said soldiers had retaken Sudzha, a key town in the Kursk region, and other settlements, from Ukraine.
Russia’s advances along the front in recent months and Trump’s attempt to strike a peace deal to end the three-year conflict have raised fears that Kyiv could lose the war.
Dressed in green camouflage uniform, Putin was seen on Wednesday visiting the Kursk region where Ukraine is set to lose its foothold after a lightning offensive by Russian forces.
“Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible timeframe, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region,” said Putin, a former KGB officer who very rarely wears military uniform.
“And of course, we need to think about creating a security zone along the state border,” said Putin. He did not mention the ceasefire plan.
Moscow-based foreign policy analyst Andrey Kortunov, a member of the Valdai Discussion Club, told Al Jazeera that by appearing in Kursk, Putin “wanted to project his confidence that Russia is on the offensive”.
“His message is that whatever Ukraine still control in the Kursk region cannot be used as a kind of leverage to make any territorial” claim during the talks, he added.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Sumy in Ukraine, said Russian drones continue to hit positions inside the country.
“The people we talk to here are highly sceptical of any ceasefire agreement, if indeed the Russians agree to one,” he said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West in six decades.