US vice-president JD Vance said Moscow had made “important concessions” on Ukraine with Donald Trump, since his summit on August 15 in Alaska with Vladimir Putin.
• Read also: Mark Carney in Ukraine to celebrate national independence day
• Read also: Russia and Ukraine are exchanging hundreds of prisoners
• Read also: Mark Carney in Ukraine: a “highly symbolic” journey on the day of their national holiday
But the democratic opposition judged on the contrary that the Russian president “wandered” his American counterpart and represented the main “obstacle” to a possible peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
According to Mr. Vance, who spoke in an interview broadcast on Sunday by the NBC channel, “the Russians made important concessions to President Trump, for the first time in three and a half years of conflict. They actually want to be flexible on some of their fundamental requirements ”.
The American emissary for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is in kyiv, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, both alongside the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the independence of his country, when diplomatic efforts to get out of the conflict seem to be bogged down.
On the contrary, according to vice-president Vance, Russia “discusses what it would be necessary to do to end the war”.
“Of course, they have not yet completely reached it and the war is not over, but we are involved in a diplomatic process in good faith,” assured the vice-president of the United States.
Rapprochement Trump-Poutine
The conservative leader even said that the first world power, whose President Trump has spectacularly approached Vladimir Putin, “tried to negotiate as much as (she) (can) with the Russians and the Ukrainians to find common ground and stop the killing.”
Mr. Vance defended Mr. Trump who “tries to engage in a very aggressive, very energetic diplomacy”.
“War is not in the interest of anyone. Neither in the interest of Europe nor in the United States and we do not think that Russia or Ukraine have an interest in continuing, “he concluded.
Despite the mediation efforts launched by Mr. Trump – at the anchorage summit with Mr. Putin and the reception on August 18 at the White House of Mr. Zelensky and his European allies, the positions of Moscow and kyiv seem irreconcilable.
The two countries at war are accused of blocking the organization of a possible meeting between their presidents.
Thus the chief of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, accused on Sunday on Russian public television Rossia the Western countries of seeking to “prevent” talks to end the conflict.
He also reaffirmed on NBC that President Putin “voul (has) peace” and “respect (Ait) President Trump because he defends American national interests”.
But for one of the opponents of Republican Donald Trump, the California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, Mr. Lavrov is a “experienced liar” and the Russians “wander the president” of the United States.
Asked, also by NBC, about the peace process in Ukraine, Mr. Schiff deplored that he is “blocked”.
The former CIA director, the retired general David Petraeus, who served under the first mandate of Barack Obama, is of the same opinion: “The obstacle to peace at the moment is President Putin,” he said on ABC television.
