US sets Easter target for Ukraine ceasefire deal – Bloomberg
Washington is still hoping to broker a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict by Easter, Bloomberg wrote on Sunday, citing sources. US President Donald Trump has vowed to bring a swift end to the hostilities in Ukraine, and has moved to restart diplomatic relations with Russia, which were frozen during the term of his predecessor, Joe Biden. Russian and US delegations are set to meet in Riyadh on Monday for the second round of high-level talks since the apparent thaw. Following Tuesday’s phone conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow agreed to a mutual temporary halt on strikes against energy infrastructure, which it says Kiev immediately violated. The White House aims to have Russia and Ukraine agree to a full ceasefire by Easter Sunday – April 20 – but realizes that the timeline could be delayed due to significant differences between the sides, Bloomberg wrote, citing anonymous sources familiar with the discussions. Prior to talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow last week, Putin stated that while he is open to a 30-day ceasefire, all military supplies to Kiev as well as the Ukrainian draft campaign need to stop to avoid strengthening Ukraine during the pause. Washington, which briefly stopped intelligence sharing and military aid to Kiev earlier this month, has not agreed to any of the demands, US officials told Bloomberg. According to the newspaper’s US sources, Trump wants any potential deal to be acceptable to Kiev, and isn’t prepared to concede too much. Despite agreeing to the terms of the US-brokered partial truce, Ukraine struck an oil depot in southern Russia the day after the agreement, and blew up a gas metering station in Russia’s Kursk Region on Friday. The violations show that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is not trustworthy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on Sunday. “The Kiev regime’s words and Zelensky’s word are not worth much,” he said. Ukrainian claims that Russia shelled its own gas metering station in Sudzha are “absurd,” he added. Earlier this week, Putin stressed that Russia needs to hear a concrete plan on how a full ceasefire would be enforced and regulated before Moscow agrees.
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