Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans yet to talk to U.S. President Donald Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, Reuters reported.
Trump has shown growing frustration with Putin in recent times. On Tuesday, he warned the Russian leader that he was "playing with fire" by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kiev now that his forces are making gains on the battlefield.
In response to Trump's remarks, the Kremlin said on Thursday that President Putin puts Russia's national interest above all else. Moscow noted that Ukraine has yet to respond to Russia's offer for talks on June 2 in Istanbul. The Kremlin has proposed a date and venue for talks to begin discussing the draft memorandums on a peace agreement.
Russian President's spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the media not to raise the issue of the hypothetical possibility of a failure of the new round of talks between Russia and Ukraine, but to wait for Kiev's response to Moscow's proposal to organize a meeting on June 2 in Istanbul, TASS reported.
"I believe that such a question is inappropriate at the moment. "We need to wait for the Ukrainian side's response and orient ourselves further," the Kremlin spokesman said in response to a question about what Russia could do if Ukraine fails the talks on June 2, TASS reports.
Peskov recalled that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a statement "in which everything was formulated absolutely clearly and our proposal to continue the negotiation process was set out."
Ukrainian Defense Minister and head of the Ukrainian delegation to the negotiations, Rustem Umerov, said yesterday that Kiev had sent Moscow a document with its position on the ceasefire.
The previous talks, held on May 16, failed to reach an agreement on a ceasefire - which, according to Moscow, is impossible to achieve before certain conditions are met.
Meanwhile, it became known that the Russian authorities are investigating the source of the threats to the family of the head of the Russian delegation for the negotiations with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinsky, TASS reported.
If it is confirmed that Ukraine is involved in them, the situation will be more than ominous, said the spokesman for the Russian president Dmitry Peskov in response to a question from TASS.