Above photo: Kuleba and Wang met in the southern city of Guangzhou, as Kyiv’s top diplomat made his first official visit to the country since the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022. (Weibo).
The Kremlin responded, saying the comments from Dmytro Kuleba were ‘in line’ with Russia’s position.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba visited China on Wednesday and signaled Ukraine was ready to resume peace talks with Russia.
According to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Kuleba told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Kyiv “is ready to engage the Russian side in the negotiation process at a certain stage when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith, but emphasized that no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side.”
The Kremlin responded and said that Kuleba’s comments were in line with Russia’s position. “We have all learned from reports from Beijing that he made such a statement at a meeting with Mr. Wang Yi. One might say that the message in itself is in line with our position,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“You know, Russia has never rejected talks, remaining open for a negotiation process. However, details are important here and we don’t know them yet. So let’s wait for some clarifications that will apparently follow,” he added.
Also on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent comments about potential peace talks couldn’t be trusted. “No one has any faith in him,” she said. “Everyone understands perfectly well that this is a man who can twist anything, who can lie, who can abandon everything.”
Since peace talks broke down in the early days of the invasion, Ukraine’s position has been that there will be no negotiations with Russia until Russian forces withdraw from all the territory they have captured, which is a non-starter for Moscow. But in recent weeks, Zelensky has signaled he’s considering changing that policy.
Throughout the war, the US and its top NATO allies have discouraged peace talks with Russia and worked to sabotage the chances of a deal when Russian and Ukrainian officials were engaged in negotiations back in March and April 2022.