Russia: We won’t accept Trump’s peace plan ‘while Zelensky is in power’

Russian minister says the country cannot accept the White House’s proposals to end the war in Ukraine.

President Putin in the Kremlin on Tuesday. Picture: Sergei Ilyin/Pool/AFP

Russia is on a collision course with President Trump after declaring that it cannot accept the White House’s plans for peace in Ukraine.

The Russian statement comes shortly after Trump threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports unless President Putin agrees to a full ceasefire. The move could affect Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.

“We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously but we can’t accept this all in the current form,” Sergey Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said of the US proposals. “As far as we can see, there is no place in them today for our main demand; namely to resolve the problems related to the root causes of this conflict.” The term “root causes” is Kremlin shorthand for President Zelensky’s pro-western government.

US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office in February. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Putin has already rejected Trump’s proposal for a full 30-day ceasefire and Moscow’s latest comments have the potential to anger the impulsive US president. Trump warned on Sunday that he was “pissed off” with Putin’s refusal to order a halt to fighting and said that he could retaliate by imposing tariffs of up to 50 per cent on imports to the US from countries that buy oil from Moscow. The measure would hit China and India, the two major purchasers of Russian oil since the Kremlin launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Indian state companies Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp are looking for alternatives to Russian oil due to possible secondary sanctions, Bloomberg reported. Oil prices climbed about 2 per cent to a five-week high after Trump’s threats, boosting Russia’s revenues.

Shortly before Ryabkov’s comments, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said during a visit to Russia that Moscow and Beijing were “friends for ever, never enemies”. He made no mention of Trump’s threats to sanction Russian oil.

The US and Russian presidents have had two official discussions about the war in Ukraine and US and Russian negotiators have held two rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia.

A Black Sea ceasefire that was announced by the White House after Putin and Trump spoke last month has yet to go into effect, a Ukrainian navy spokesman said.

The Kremlin has put forward a set of demands on lifting sanctions against Russian companies and one of its biggest banks that it says must be met before any truce can go into force.

The Times