Vance: Moscow and Kiev agree to return to the negotiating table

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US Vice President J.D. Vance said on Thursday that Washington believes that Moscow and Kiev have agreed to return to negotiations to settle the conflict in Ukraine.

“I think the two countries have agreed to return to the negotiating table,” Vance told reporters in Cincinnati, Ohio. “The reason we cannot reach a peace agreement is because their positions differ greatly on some issues related to the negotiations.”

These statements came as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed that reaching a settlement to the conflict in Ukraine faces great challenges, stressing that any solution to the crisis must address, in a radical and sustainable manner, the reasons that prompted Moscow to launch the special military operation.

Ryabkov said, during the Economic Forum in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on Thursday, that current efforts are focused on searching for a way out of the Ukrainian crisis and its repercussions, but he pointed out that finding a path towards a settlement is not an easy matter, according to TASS.

In turn, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that the Russian strikes carried out overnight constitute evidence that “there is no change” in Moscow’s position despite the United States reviving diplomatic efforts.

“Almost immediately after a new series of talks, Russia launched a precisely targeted attack, which means that there has been no real change in its position regarding everything that is happening,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram application.

It is noteworthy that the Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on for more than 4 years, after Moscow launched on February 24, 2022, the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Since then, Russia has stressed that any settlement of the conflict must take into account the "root causes of the crisis," while Kiev and its Western allies maintain that ending the war requires the withdrawal of Russian forces and respect for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Recent months have also witnessed repeated diplomatic attempts to revive the negotiation process and reach a ceasefire, but the continuing discrepancy between Moscow and Kiev regarding the terms of the settlement still prevents tangible progress towards ending the conflict.