Cnn
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend London talks to work towards the end of the Russian war in Ukraine, as kyiv reported that he would reject a key detail from the Trump administration to end the three -year conflict.
Rubio was to participate in discussions with Ukrainian, British and European officials, but the spokesman for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, said on Tuesday that he would no longer take care of “logistical problems”.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg will represent Bruce in the United States. The talks follow a meeting in Paris last week in which officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany discussed an American framework for a cease-fire.
The proposal includes the recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea, the Ukrainian Sud Peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, a familiar official with the framework told CNN. He would also put a cease-fire in place along the war front lines, said the official.
Any decision to recognize the control of Russia on Crimea would overthrow a decade of American policy.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky clearly said that he was open to talks with Russia, but that kyiv would not accept an agreement that recognizes Moscow’s control over Crimea.
“Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea,” he told journalists. “There is nothing to say. It is against our constitution. ”
Rubio declared in an article on X that he had a “productive conversation” with the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who organizes the meeting on Wednesday, and whom he “(seems) to follow” with the United Kingdom and Ukraine at a later time.
The talks in London intervened after the US officials have publicly expressed frustration in the face of the lack of progress to end the war.
Trump said that he “should see an enthusiasm for wanting to end it” on both sides so that the United States continues the negotiations, after Rubio warned last week that Washington could move away from his efforts to end the conflict if there was no sign of progress.
The large framework was presented on both sides, said Rubio and the State Department, to determine if the differences can be reduced in a short time. There are still elements of the framework to be fulfilled and the United States plan to work with Europeans and Ukrainians on this week, the official told CNN.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to go to Moscow this week to continue negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said on Tuesday. The Kremlin confirmed Witkoff’s visit, but did not reveal more details, according to the Russian state media.
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that negotiations, “let’s hope, played in the right direction”, and refused to say what peace efforts in the United States might look like.
Moscow previously blocked negotiations and rejected an anterior American proposal for a 30-day cease-fire agreed by kyiv.
However, under pressure from Trump, Ukraine and Russia, expressed their desire to negotiate for the first time in years; The two parties have not had direct talks since the first weeks of the invasion of Moscow in 2022.
Putin raised the prospect on Monday to try direct talks with Ukraine from a cease-fire that would stop striking civilian objectives, but said new discussions were necessary on how to define a civil target.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later confirmed the Russian president’s remarks, saying that “(Putin) had in mind negotiations and discussions with the Ukrainian side,” said Reuters, citing the Interfax news agency in Russia.
