The Kremlin said on Monday that someone would have to force Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make peace and that the Ukrainian leader's public clash with U.S. President Donald Trump had shown just how hard it would be to find a way to end the war.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance clashed with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday. Trump accused Zelenskyy of disrespecting the United States, said he was losing the war and risked triggering World War Three.
"What happened at the White House on Friday, of course, demonstrated how difficult it will be to reach a settlement trajectory around Ukraine," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The Kyiv regime and Zelenskyy do not want peace. They want the war to continue."
"It is very important that someone forces Zelenskyy himself to change his position," Peskov said. "Someone has to make Zelenskyy want peace. If the Europeans can do it, they should be honoured and praised."
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
Conflict in and over Ukraine had been building for years before his decision. Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014 after a pro-Moscow president was ousted amid mass street protests in Kyiv. Russian-backed separatists then began fighting Ukraine's armed forces in the country's eastern Donbas region.
Peskov said Putin was familiar with the "unprecedented event" in the Oval Office, adding that it had demonstrated at the very least Zelenskyy's lack of diplomatic skills.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday he believed he could salvage his relationship with Trump but that Ukraine would not concede any territory to Russia as part of a peace deal.
Russia currently controls just under a fifth of Ukraine - or about 113,000 square km - while Ukraine has seized about 450 square km of Russia in an incursion into neighbouring Kursk province, according to open source maps of the war and Russian estimates.
WESTERN 'FRAGMENTATION'
After the clash in the Oval Office, European leaders leapt to Zelenskyy's defence. At a summit in London on Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to present to the United States.
Starmer also announced a new British 1.6 billion pound ($2 billion) deal that would allow Ukraine to purchase 5,000 air-defence missiles.
Responding to the summit, the Kremlin said the London summit was an attempt to continue the war, not to seek peace, but also noted the divisions between Europe and the United States.
"We see that... a fragmentation of the collective West has begun," Peskov said.
"There remains a group of countries that rather constitutes the party of war, which declares its readiness to further back Ukraine in terms of supporting the war and ensuring the continuation of hostilities."
The West and Ukraine describe Russia's 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab.
Putin casts the conflict as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.
Peskov said Russia would continue its dialogue with Washington on bilateral ties and would press on with what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine.
Asked about Trump's remarks that he had spoken to Putin on "numerous occasions", Peskov said: "There have been no contacts that should have been made public" beyond a Feb. 12 phone call.
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The Spanish agricultural sector has been placed on high alert following the confirmation that African Swine Fever (ASF) has resurfaced in the country for the first time in over thirty years.
The Japanese government is preparing to host a landmark summit with the leaders of the Central Asian states, expected to take place in Tokyo in December 2025.
The Kremlin is set to evaluate a new diplomatic proposal aimed at halting the hostilities in Ukraine, with high-level discussions involving a Washington envoy scheduled for the coming days in Moscow.
The European Union’s high-stakes strategy to leverage hundreds of billions in frozen Russian capital to prop up Ukraine’s defence has hit a critical roadblock, with Belgium warning that the move could torpedo fragile diplomatic openings aimed at ending the conflict.
At least 47 people have died and another 21 are reported missing following ten days of heavy rainfall, floods, and landslides across Sri Lanka, local media reported on Thursday (27 November).
Hong Kong fire authorities said they expected to wrap up search and rescue operations on Friday after the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years tore through a massive apartment complex, killing at least 128 people, injuring 79 and leaving around 200 still missing.
A passenger aircraft from Polish carrier LOT veered off a taxiway at Lithuania's Vilnius airport after arriving from Warsaw on Wednesday, halting all traffic, the airport operator said.
Netflix crashed on Wednesday for about an hour in the U.S. as it launched season five of "Stranger Things", with the service becoming inaccessible to many subscribers within minutes of the episodes going live at 8 p.m. local time.
Thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets of Sofia on Wednesday to protest against the government’s draft budget for 2026, the first to be prepared in euros ahead of the country’s planned eurozone entry on 1 January 2026.
The Kremlin is set to evaluate a new diplomatic proposal aimed at halting the hostilities in Ukraine, with high-level discussions involving a Washington envoy scheduled for the coming days in Moscow.
The European Union’s high-stakes strategy to leverage hundreds of billions in frozen Russian capital to prop up Ukraine’s defence has hit a critical roadblock, with Belgium warning that the move could torpedo fragile diplomatic openings aimed at ending the conflict.
A simmering diplomatic feud between Washington and Pretoria has erupted into a full-scale crisis, with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa describing U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to ban South Africa from the 2026 G20 summit as "regrettable" and based on "misinformation."
Making his diplomatic debut in Türkiye, the first American Pope warned a "piecemeal" World War III endangers humanity. Leo XIV met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed on Thursday (27 November), urging an end to global conflicts.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief: here are the top news stories for the 28th of November, covering the latest developments you need to know.
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