MOSCOW (Reuters) -A top Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that the impetus to find a peace deal to end the fighting in Ukraine which emerged after a summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump in August had proven to be largely exhausted.
Trump and Putin met at a Cold War-era air force base in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15 in an attempt to end the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.
Trump, who had previously said Kyiv should give up land to make peace with Moscow, has repeatedly said that he is disappointed with Putin for not ending the war, and has cast Russia as a “paper tiger”.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees relations with the US and arms control, accused European powers which support Ukraine of successfully torpedoing peace efforts.
“Unfortunately, we have to admit that Anchorage’s powerful momentum in favour of agreements has been largely exhausted by the efforts of opponents and supporters of the war,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
“This is the result of destructive activities, primarily by the Europeans,” he said.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the war as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces. Putin blames the West for ignoring Moscow’s security concerns after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union about the enlargement of the NATO military alliance.
Ryabkov also said that the potential appearance of U.S. Tomahawk missiles in Ukraine would mean a “qualitative” change in the situation, Interfax quoted him as saying.
Trump said earlier this week he would want to know what Ukraine planned to do with Tomahawks before agreeing to provide them because he did not want to escalate the war.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge/Anastasia Teterevleva; editing by Andrew Osborn)
