With Ukraine Taking Firmer Stance, Peace Talks Grind to a Halt

After weeks of trying to hammer out a peace deal, negotiators for Russia and Ukraine appear farther apart than at any other point in the nearly three-month-long war, with the peace talks having collapsed in a thicket of public recriminations.

Vladimir Medinsky, the head of President Vladimir Putin’s delegation, speaking in his first interview with a Western news outlet since the beginning of the war, has claimed that Russia has still not received a response to a draft peace agreement that it submitted to Ukraine on April 15. Rustem Umerov, a top Ukrainian negotiator, responded by saying that Russia was operating with “fakes and lies.”

“We are defending ourselves,” Mr. Umerov said in an interview. “If Russia wants to get out, they can get out to their borders even today. But they are not doing it.” Read more

@nytimes