Russia Publicly Rejects U.S. Peace Terms On Ukraine For The First Time

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, stated in an interview with Internal Affairs Magazine, that Russia could not accept the U.S. peace proposal without addressing the “root causes” of the war. Ryabkov would also go onto state that Moscow sees no signals from the U.S. or Ukraine that they could bring an end to the war beyond the proposed 30 day ceasefire.

Last month, after a meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations in Saudi Arabia, special envoy to President Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with a 30 day ceasefire which Putin did not outright object but expressed his concerns with an unconditional ceasefire and left the door open for further talks.

These talks produced an agreement for a 30 day ceasefire on attacks on energy infrastructure and a Russian agreement to return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, originally agreed upon in 2022 but from which they withdrew from in 2023 amid allegations commercial shipping was being used to smuggle weapons to Ukraine.

However, since then even these agreements seem to be on the brink of falling apart. Russia claims that Ukraine is still attacking Russian energy infrastructure, and Russia’s conditions for returning to the Black Sea Grain Initiative involve Europe lifting sanctions on Russian agriculture exports, which the EU has stated they will not.

Earlier this week, American media reported that the Trump Administration now feels that an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine is out of reach. This came after a weekend interview Trump gave to NBC in which he stated he was “pissed off at Putin” for the lack of progress on peace talks and threatened new sanctions.