The ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, which was proposed by the United States, would “give nothing” to Russia while he helps Kyiv by giving his tired and short-handed military a break, said a Kremlin adjutant on Thursday.
“A 30-day temporary ceasefire. Well, what does we exist? It doesn’t exist. There is only the opportunity to group up to group, gain strength and continue the same,” Yuri Ushakov told the Russian media.
His comments follow the Russian Ministry of Department of Department that their troops have driven the Ukrainian army from the largest city in the Russia’s Kursk border region. The Ukrainian officials did not make an immediate statement on the claim that could not be checked independently.
The Ministry of the City of Sudzha was explained after Russian President Vladimir Putin had visited his commanders in Kursk and borne military fatigue.
Trump ready to use sanctions
The renewed Russian military boost and Putin’s top-class visit came to his troops when US President Donald Trump pushed for a diplomatic end of the Three Year War the day before. Trump said on Wednesday that “it is now up to Russia”, and he had made veiled threats to hit Russia with new sanctions if it would not deal with peace efforts.
“We can, but I hope it will not be necessary. Sure, we can exert pressure. We can do this with Russia,” Trump told reporters in the White House on Wednesday when he was asked about possible sanctions.
Scott Bessent, Finance Minister of US Financing, said CNBC on Thursday that Trump was “ready to exert a maximum pressure on both sides”, including sanctions that reach the highest order of magnitude on Russia.
The Press spokesman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News that the national security advisor Mike Waltz spoke to his Russian counterpart on Wednesday.
In the meantime, a US officer confirmed on Thursday that Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff in Moscow has received talks with Russian officials. The official spoke about the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter.
High -ranking US officials say that they hope that Russia will stop attacks on Ukraine in the next few days.
“Temporary Pause” for the military of Ukraine
But Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy advisor, complained on Thursday in television speech that a ceasefire would grant a “temporary break for the Ukrainian military”.
Ushakov said that Moscow wants to “take into account the interests and concerns of Moscow”. His comments came at Waltz one day after he called.
Ushakov’s comments repeated Putin, who repeatedly said, a temporary ceasefire would benefit Ukraine and its western allies.
The United States still have around 3.85 billion US dollars in congress funding for future arms deliveries to Ukraine, but the Trump government has so far not been interested in using this authority to send additional weapons because it expects the result of peace outures.
By signaling its openness to an armistice, Ukraine presented the Kremlin a dilemma in a time when the Russian military has the upper hand in the war – whether it accepts a ceasefire and the hopes to make new profits or to reject the offer and derail a careful derailment with Washington.
The support of the Ukrainian army in Russia has been under pressure for months due to a new effort by the Russian armed forces, which were supported by North Korean troops. The daring idea of Ukraine in August last August led to the first line -up of Russian soil by foreign troops since the Second World War and lay the Kremlin.
Putin spoke to commanders on Wednesday and said that he expected the military to “completely free the Kursk region from the enemy in the near future”.
Putin added that in the future “it is necessary to create a security zone in addition to the state border” in a signal that Moscow could try to expand its territorial profits by capturing parts of the neighboring Sumy region of Ukraine. This idea could complicate a ceasefire contract.
Ukraine started the attack to counteract the incessantly decided news from the front, as well as to pull away Russian troops in Ukraine from the battlefield and to receive a negotiation chip in peace talks. But the idea did not significantly change the dynamics of the war.
The Institute for the Investigation of War, a thought factory based in Washington, rated on Wednesday that the Russian armed forces had control over Sudzha.
The top military leader of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said late Wednesday that the Russian aviation had carried out an unprecedented number of strikes against Kursk and that Sudzha was almost completely destroyed. He did not say whether Ukraine still controlled the settlement, but said that it was “maneuvered (troops) more advantageous lines”.
Meanwhile Majorgen. Dmytro Krasylnykov, commander of the northern Operation Command of Ukraine, to which the Kursk region was also released from his post, he told the Ukrainian media outlet suspilne on Wednesday. He told the outlet that he had no reason for his release and said: “I suspect, but I don’t want to talk about it yet.”
