Kremlin says Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky ignoring ‘Russia’s concerns’

President Vladimir Putin insists Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the fighting in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin insists Russia is aiming for a speedy end to the fighting. Picture: AFP

The Kremlin has ­accused Kyiv and Washington of turning a deaf ear to its concerns and charged the US was using Ukraine as a battleground to weaken Russia.

It came as President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the fighting.

“Our goal is … to end this conflict. We are striving for this,” he said. “We will seek to make sure that it all ends, and the sooner, the better. All conflicts end, some way or another, with talks … The faster our adversaries (in Kyiv) understand that, the better it will be.”

However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia has shown no real interest in ending the war in Ukraine.

Mr Blinken said he spoke virtually on Thursday with G7 foreign ministers about ideas for a “just peace” proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a historic visit to Washington a day before.

Mr Blinken called Mr Zelensky’s ideas “a good start” and that any peace needed to be “just and durable” – and that the US would not impose its own solutions on Ukraine. “Fundamentally right now, Russia has shown no interest in meaningful diplomacy, in meaningfully engaging, to bring this war to an end,” he said.

He said Russia could immediately end the war by withdrawing troops, but “in the absence of that, we have to see some meaningful evidence that Russia is prepared to actually negotiate a just and durable peace”.

“By just – one that doesn’t simply ratify another country seizing by force the territory of another,” Blinken said. “Durable – in the sense that we want to make sure that it holds and that we’re not simply putting Ukraine in a position where Russia is going to ­repeat what it did a month, six months, a year later.”

Mr Zelensky told congress his country was “alive and kicking” and supporting it was an investment in global security. He ­enjoyed a hero’s welcome on the lightning trip on Wednesday, in which US President Joe Biden committed nearly $US1.8bn in military supplies including, for the first time, the Patriot missile ­defence system.

Mr Putin warned this could further draw out the conflict, saying: “Those who are confronting us say this is a defensive weapon … There will always be an antidote.

“The people who are doing this are doing it in vain. It’s just prolonging the conflict, that’s all.”

Earlier, the Kremlin said Mr Biden and Mr Zelensky were not listening to “Russia’s concerns”.

“Not a single word was heard warning Zelensky against the continued shelling of residential buildings in towns and villages in Donbas and there were no real calls for peace,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “This suggests that the United States is continuing its line of de facto fighting an indirect war with Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

Mr Zelensky said that he stopped in Poland on his return journey from the US and “discussed strategic plans for the future” with President Andrzej Duda.

On his way to the US he travelled to Poland by train, and flew in a US air force Boeing C-40B to Joint Base Andrews, half an hour’s drive from the White House.

AFP