Colossal effort on for deal, but Kyiv lacks zeal: Kremlin

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia was putting "colossal" energy into talks on a possible peace deal with Ukraine but did not see such "zeal" from Kyiv, and agreement had yet to be reached.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talks were continuing and Russian negotiators were ready to work around the clock.

Ukraine says it is willing to negotiate to end the three-week-old war, but will not surrender or accept Russian ultimatums.


"Negotiations are complicated. The positions of the parties are different. For us, fundamental issues are inviolable,"Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukraine's President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a tweet. Another official in Zelenskyy's office said on the condition of anonymity that the main subject under discussion was whether Russian troops would remain in separatist regions in eastern Ukraine after the war and where the borders would be.

Russia wants a neutral Ukraine and a written guarantee that its former Soviet neighbour would never join the NATO military alliance. Peskov said that if Ukraine agreed such a document and adhered to it then Russia "could very quickly stop what is happening."

Asked about a Financial Times report that Ukraine and Russia had made significant progress on a tentative peace plan, Peskov said: "It is not right - there are elements there that are right but on the whole it is incorrect."

US President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping are scheduled to speak by phone on Friday, and the US president also plans to travel to Europe next week for talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion, and will attend an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels.

Biden has announced that the US is sending an additional $800 million in military assistance--including anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons and drones--to Ukraine, making a total of $2 billion in such aid sent to Kyiv since Biden took office more than a year ago.

Biden also termed Putin a "war criminal". In response, the Kremlin said this is an unforgivable remark by the leader of a country which had killed civilians in conflicts across the world.

Putin on Thursday lashed out at "scum and traitors," signalling an even harsher crackdown on domestic opposition to the war.

Meanwhile, the governor of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv said it has experienced "colossal losses and destruction'' from Russian artillery and air strikes. Viacheslav Chaus told Ukrainian TV on Thursday that the bodies of 53 people had arrived at city morgues over the past 24 hours. In the besieged southern city of Mariupol, a Russian airstrike hit a theatre where hundreds of people were sheltering.