The US government is pushing for a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict by April 20, according to a report by Bloomberg on Sunday, citing anonymous sources.
The US special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, stated at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that a US peace plan could be presented within weeks or even days.
The report by Bloomberg states: “The Trump administration has told European officials that it will secure a ceasefire in Ukraine by Easter.”
European government representatives, however, consider the pace of negotiations set by Washington to be ambitious and unrealistic. According to reports, the talks are expected to resume in the coming days at a meeting of Russian and US representatives in Saudi Arabia.
Kellogg stated that Europe will not be involved in these negotiations. According to a Financial Times report on Thursday, European government representatives, however, fear that the US will shift the responsibility for Ukraine’s security to them after the war.
The special envoy justified the exclusion of Europe by citing the failed Minsk-2 agreement between Ukraine and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in 2015, in which Germany and France served as guarantor powers. Kellogg said: “If you look at Minsk-2, there were many people at the table who were really not in a position to carry out any kind of peace process and it has failed miserably. We will not take that path.”
Russia has also emphasized that it will not accept a temporary freeze on hostilities like the Minsk agreements and is seeking a lasting solution that addresses the fundamental causes of the conflict.
Only a few days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump spoke by phone, the first such conversation since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. According to a Newsweek report on Sunday, the two leaders could still meet in Saudi Arabia in February.
Putin has previously stressed that Moscow is not opposed to peace talks, but these must be based on the conditions agreed upon in Istanbul in 2022 and take into account the territorial “realities on the ground.” Russia demands a neutral, demilitarized and denazified Ukraine that remains free of nuclear weapons in the long term.