The Kremlin said on March 26 that Russia is in contact with the United States about the possibility of more talks on a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s key issues, including the territorial question, remained unresolved.
“We remain open, we are in contact with the Americans, and we are counting on holding the next round of talks as soon as circumstances permit,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations last met for U.S.-brokered talks in Geneva on Feb. 17.
Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, killing the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Peskov denied the premise of a March 25 opinion piece in The New York Times, which suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin had lost interest in negotiations following the attack on Iran, a strategic ally of Moscow.
The op-ed, written by Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, said Putin was under pressure at the start of the year to agree to meaningful negotiations with Ukraine because of Russia’s faltering economy.
“By a strange twist of history, the start of the war in Iran halted the prospect of ending the war in Ukraine—at the very moment when Mr. Putin appeared ready to consider it,” Zygar wrote.
‘Absolutely False Invention’
The Kremlin refuted Zygar’s suggestion.
“This is an absolutely false invention that does not correspond to reality. During the rounds of trilateral talks that have taken place, some progress was made toward a settlement,” Peskov said.
Earlier this week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Russia had been briefed by the Trump administration on the latest talks between the United States and a Ukrainian delegation in Florida on March 21.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking during a Cabinet meeting on March 26, said the conflict is a “slaughterhouse,” and he wants to prevent further loss of life.
“If I can solve the Russia–Ukraine war, it would be a great honor to do it,” Trump said. “What’s happening there is horrible. This war is a shame. I want to stop the death from happening.”
Russia has been keeping up military pressure on Ukraine.
On March 24, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired 400 long-range drones at targets in Ukraine overnight.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on March 23 that Russian troops had launched 619 attacks in four days.
“Thanks to the professional, coordinated actions of Ukrainian soldiers, the enemy’s offensive actions were stopped in several directions,” Syrskyi said in a March 23 post on Telegram. “High-intensity battles continue in some areas of the front, but the enemy is forced to regroup its forces.”
Kyiv has been predicting that Russia would launch a spring offensive once the weather improves.
Belgorod regional authorities said on March 26, 2026, that Ukraine had attacked settlements in the region with about 170 drones over the previous 24 hours, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukrainian drone strikes killed two people in the region on March 25. He said drones killed an 18-year-old man on a motorcycle in a village near the border and a woman in her car in the town of Graivoron, also near the border.
Ukrainian shelling of a public building in the city of Belgorod killed four people last week.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Friends Read Free
Copy
Facebook
Tweet
