French President Emmanuel Macron says Russian President Vladimir Putin told him during Kremlin talks that he would not escalate the Ukraine
Vladimir Putin to Emmanuel Macron, February 7, 2022:
"Moscow would not further escalate the Ukraine crisis."
"Moscow ... has no plans to attack."
"[Putin] won't be initiating an escalation."
"There wouldn't be any Russian ... 'deployment' in Belarus."
"Withdrawing Russian troops from Belarus after the maneuvers was the plan all along."
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, February 12:
"The Americans are artificially inflating the hysteria around the so-called planned Russian invasion."
Anatoly Antonov, Russia's ambassador to the United States, February 20:
"There is no invasion. There is no such plans."
On February 24, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The invading Russian Armed Forces of course included tanks entering Ukraine via its border with Belarus.
Steve Witkoff spoke to Yuri Ushakov on territorial control and suggested congratulating Donald Trump and framing talks more optimistically,
Joseph Gedeon and Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told a senior Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg.
In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically.
“Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,” Witkoff told Ushakov during the five-minute conversation, according to Bloomberg’s transcript. “But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here.”
The US envoy also offered tactical guidance on how Putin should raise the subject with Trump, including suggestions about scheduling a Trump-Putin telephone conversation before Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit later that week.
[...]
The recording offers a direct insight into Witkoff’s negotiating approach and appears to reveal the origins of the controversial 28-point peace proposal that emerged earlier in November.
On the call, Witkoff, who recently helped broker the Gaza ceasefire agreement, suggested Moscow and Washington develop a joint peace framework modelled on that deal. “We put a 20-point Trump plan together that was 20 points for peace and I’m thinking maybe we do the same thing with you,” he said.
Ushakov appeared to take some of the advice onboard. Putin “will congratulate” and will say: “Mr Trump is a real peace man,” he said.
The heavily criticised 28-point proposal would require Ukraine to cede the entire Donetsk region to Russia, including areas under Ukrainian control. Russia has not fully captured Donetsk.
Those territories would become a demilitarized buffer zone recognised internationally as Russian, and the plan would also grant Russia control of Luhansk and Crimea while freezing battle lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Putin said this month he believed the US plan could serve as the “basis for a final peaceful settlement”, though the Kremlin maintains it has not discussed the proposal in detail with Washington.
Steve Witkoff selling out America and Ukraine to Putin. SMH.
See Also:
AP, via HuffPost: Report: U.S. Envoy Coached Putin Aide On How Russian Leader Should Pitch Trump On Ukraine Peace Plan
“This is a major problem. And one of the many reasons why these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop."
Bloomberg News stunned the political world on Tuesday by releasing the leaked transcript of a call between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian foreign-policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, which took place on Oct. 14.
The transcript shows Witkoff coaching his Russian counterpart on how to flatter President Donald Trump in order for him to be more amenable to Russia’s wants in the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
The transcript also included Witkoff telling the Russians, “ I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere. But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here. And I think Yuri, the president will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to the deal.”
Details of a summit meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be announced on Thursday, a US official has told CNN. This official would not offer more details, but Helsinki, Finland, remains a leading site contender for the two leaders' meeting.
Kevin Liptak, Michelle Kosinski, and Jeff Zeleny at CNN:
Washington (CNN): Details of a summit meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be announced on Thursday, a US official has told CNN. This official would not offer more details, but Helsinki, Finland, remains a leading site contender for the two leaders' meeting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also told CNN Wednesday that Washington and Moscow will jointly announce Thursday the time and place for a planned summit.
“The joint announcement is due to be made tomorrow," he told CNN's Matthew Chance.
Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted earlier by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying the summit would take place in an as-yet-unnamed third country.
Trump will be in Europe in mid-July for a NATO meeting in Brussels and a working visit to the United Kingdom.
On Tuesday, two sources familiar with the matter said it was possible Trump's meeting with Putin could take place on July 10 before his other European stops.
More details about the summit were expected as early as Wednesday when Trump's national security adviser John Bolton met with his Russian counterparts in Moscow. Before his arrival, it wasn't clear whether he would meet with Putin. But on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated the two men would sit for talks.
Peskov said the meeting could be "used as an opportunity to exchange opinions on major international problems -- this list is quite clear and obvious -- as well as the poor state of our bilateral relations."
Trump, meanwhile, is renewing his censure of NATO on the campaign trail ahead of his upcoming visit to the defense bloc's headquarters.
In Moscow, the US national security adviser is finalizing plans for a meeting between the American and Russian presidents.
And in London, protesters are devising ways to disrupt the President's long-delayed visit to the United Kingdom.
The parallel activities will collide in two weeks, when Trump departs for Europe on a trip intended to shore up alliances but more likely to reveal their strain. After this month's G7 meeting ended in recriminations between allies, there is little expectation among European and US diplomats of an easygoing time.
US officials have proceeded as if Trump will meet Putin in mid-July around his stops in Brussels for the NATO talks and the UK for a working visit.
[...]
Trump has sought better relations with Russia, even as US investigations probe Moscow's attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. While he agreed to expel Russian diplomats from the US as punishment for Moscow's alleged poisoning of a former Russian spy, he initially resisted the move and later vented that he felt pressured to act.
Trump and Putin last greeted each other in person on the sidelines of a leaders' summit in Vietnam in November. That followed a formal sit-down meeting in Hamburg during last year's G20 summit.
At NATO headquarters in Brussels, talk is less about warming ties with Russia than it is about applying further pressure. Most European leaders have insisted a sanctions regime remain in place as long as Russia maintains its annexation of Crimea.
Leaders hope to agree on reinforcing NATO's posture on Europe's eastern flank to deter Russian aggression, a campaign supported and increased by US Defense Secretary James Mattis. Some European officials fear Trump's overture to Putin could result in the pressure fading.
NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week he wasn't concerned about a Trump-Putin meeting.
"A meeting between President Trump and President Putin will be in line with NATO policies because NATO believes in dialogue with Russia," he said at a meeting of European defense ministers. "We need to talk to Russia, partly to try to improve our relationship with Russia, but even if that's not possible to improve the relationship in the near future, it is important to manage a difficult relationship to Russia. Meaning that we have higher tensions, we have more military presence, more military exercises close to our borders."
[...]
During his meetings in Europe this week, Bolton has sought out those types of viewpoints, including during meetings in Rome. The National Security Council tweeted a photo of Bolton smiling during a meeting with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has taken heat recently for his comments on migrants.
In recently unearthed footage, Salvini is seen calling for a "mass cleansing, street by street, piazza by piazza, neighborhood by neighborhood" of migrants, decrying the situation as "out of control."
An admirer of Putin and an avid Twitter user, Salvini is the type of European leader that Trump and his allies have worked to cultivate since taking office, often to the dismay of more establishment politicians. In the UK, where Trump will travel following his stop in Brussels, the President has been a supporter of pro-Brexit politician Nigel Farage, even suggesting he would make a strong British ambassador in Washington.
Sentiments like that -- along with his criticism of London's mayor, his tweets about a bombing in London and his retweets of an extreme right-wing British group -- have garnered Trump widespread unpopularity in Britain. British Prime Minister Theresa May, ever wishful of improving her ties with Trump, hopes his visit in July won't be overshadowed by an immigration crisis in the US or fresh controversy from NATO.
She also hopes mass protests planned for London won't impede her welcoming abilities. Already, planners have said tens of thousands of people are expected to march in the capital. Protests are also expected at Trump's golf course in Scotland, where he's expected to spend at least a night.
Much of the President's visit to the UK will occur outside of London, people familiar with the planning say, including a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle and bilateral talks with May at the prime minister's country estate Chequers.
He's not, for now, planning to address Parliament -- perhaps a disappointment for demonstrators planning to float a 20-foot helium balloon in the shape of a Trump-faced orange baby nearby.
A comment attributed to President Vladimir Putin warning that Russia could capture Kiev in two weeks was taken out of context, his top foreign policy aide said Tuesday. "Whether these words were said or not I believe the quote that you cite has been taken out of context and had a completely different meaning," aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists. Italy's La Repubblica newspaper reported a summary of a debate at last weekend's EU summit citing European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso as saying he had spoken by telephone with Putin. The paper said the Kremlin strongman declined to answer questions about Russian troops operating in Ukraine and threatened: "If I wanted I could take Kiev in two weeks."
Source: AFP
By Frank Jack Daniel NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Shanghai looks set to become the headquarters of a development bank being launched by the BRICS emerging market nations, despite fears by some members of the group that China could hijack the bank to serve its interests. Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa are due to sign off on the new institution on Tuesday, along with an emergency reserves fund, after two years of negotiations, a major step for the diverse group known more for its anti-Western rhetoric than coordinated action. Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov told Kremlin reporters late last week that bank would be based in Shanghai, mainland China's financial capital, citing discussion papers prepared by the member countries.
Source: Reuters
SOCHI Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in France on Friday during a visit on the 70th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings in World War Two, Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said. Plans for meetings with French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron during the visit to France had already been announced, but Ushakov told reporters no meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama is planned. ...
Source: Reuters
