MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia was preparing for contacts with the United States to get details about U.S. talks with European powers and Ukraine on a possible peace settlement to end the Ukraine conflict.
Politico reported that U.S. and Russian officials are expected to meet in Miami at the weekend, and that the Russian delegation would include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
When asked about media reports about a meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that contacts were planned with the United States.
“We are indeed preparing certain contacts with our American counterparts in order to receive information about the results of the work that the Americans have done with the Europeans and with Ukraine,” Peskov said.
The United States has held talks with Russia, and separately with Kyiv and European leaders, on proposals for ending the war in Ukraine but no deal has been reached.
Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would take more land in Ukraine by force if Kyiv and European politicians whom he cast as “young pigs” did not engage over U.S. proposals for a peace settlement.
European leaders say they stand with Kyiv and that if Russia wins in Ukraine then Moscow will one day attack a NATO member. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed claims that Russia would attack a NATO member as nonsense.
Russia controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including the Crimea peninsula which it annexed in 2014, as well as most of the eastern Donbas region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and slivers of four other regions.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Reuters reporters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
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