Ukraine and its European allies accused Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.
The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”
The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf that remain between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.
No, my thinking is “it’s been nakedly apparent what kind of person Putin is, and how he and the oligarchic mafia that he initially aligned with and then suborned, have not only taken complete control of the Russian federal government apparatus writ large, but also have been trying to subtly undermine the social and geopolitical fabric of pretty much the entire western world since he orchestrated his own rise to power with false-flag terrorism executed against his own country”.