Kremlin accepts 10 November date for Ukraine peace talks
Zelensky tells Fox News he would freeze the war along current front lines, EU keeps energy sanctions until war's end as Russian diesel leaves for the US
Images
Rusia aceptó reanudar conversaciones de paz con Ucrania desde el 10 de noviembre. (Sputnik/Kristina Solovyova/REUTERS)
infobae.com
Steve Witkoff viajó a Rusia un día después de reunirse en Oslo con Volodimir Zelensky y mandatarios europeos. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/REUTERS)
infobae.com
La Unión Europea ratificó que mantendrá las sanciones energéticas contra Rusia hasta el fin de la guerra en Ucrania. (REUTERS/ARCHIVO)
infobae.com
La jefa del Ejecutivo comunitario afirmó que el gobierno ruso utiliza la dependencia energética ajena como un instrumento de chantaje. (REUTERS/ARCHIVO)
infobae.com
Rusia despachará hacia el mercado de Estados Unidos un primer cargamento de 40.000 toneladas de diésel. (REUTERS/ARCHIVO)
infobae.com
zerohedge.com
The Kremlin has accepted resuming trilateral talks with the United States and Ukraine from 10 November, Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov announced after US envoy Steve Witkoff's roughly three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. The parties have held no such contacts since February. Russia proposes that the talks concentrate on security guarantees for both countries once the conflict has ended.
The announcement came a day after Witkoff met Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Oslo, a meeting Finnish president Alexander Stubb said achieved "genuine progress." In an interview aired by Fox News, Zelensky said he would accept a ceasefire freezing the front lines where they stand — even if that leaves Russia in control of roughly a quarter of Ukrainian territory. "Yes. We have to freeze," he said, adding that he would then ask the United States and European countries for security guarantees.
Washington's fuel diplomacy is running ahead of its political diplomacy. Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak says a first shipment of 40,000 tons of diesel leaves for the United States on Thursday, with contracts in their final stage of signing after Trump and Putin discussed oil by telephone on 9 October. More batches will follow, Novak said, within the capacity of Russia's refineries.
Brussels has answered with the opposite pledge. Before the European Parliament's plenary, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declared that the EU's sanctions, including those on energy, "will remain until Russia ends the war." Russia, she said, "is not a trusted energy supplier" and uses other countries' energy dependence as an instrument of blackmail — "a lesson Europe will never forget." EU leaders expressed regret at their summit last week over the Trump-Putin agreement to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel, reached so the fuel could reach markets as prices climb with the conflict around the Strait of Hormuz.
Under discussion as part of the post-war arrangements, ZeroHedge reports, is the deployment of European forces to Ukraine — troops US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has said would not fall under Article 5 protection, and which Putin has called legitimate targets. The trade-off the site sketches is pipelines for peacekeepers: Russian energy exports resume, and Europe supplies the soldiers.
Von der Leyen's sanctions remain in force until Russia ends the war. The first shipment of Russian diesel leaves for the United States on Thursday.