The Kremlin continues to reject peace talks with Ukraine, despite Ukraine's repeated offers for direct talks recently.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Frederic Merz issued a joint statement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 7, proposing conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, including an immediate ceasefire, the resumption of negotiations and the freezing of the current front line as a starting point for negotiations.
This is according to the "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW), reported News.bg.
Zelensky confirmed in an interview with Sky News on June 7 that he had recently met in Kiev with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who had acted as a mediator for Russian President Vladimir Putin to show him that Ukraine was ready to freeze the front line along the current line of contact and resume peace talks, including through direct negotiations with Putin.
Zelensky also published an open letter to Putin on June 4 after meeting with Abramovich, in which he proposed a meeting at the leadership level.
Putin subsequently rejected Zelensky's proposal for direct negotiations.
On June 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed the Kremlin's commitment to the "understandings" that the United States and Russia allegedly reached at the Alaska summit in August 2025, using the lack of publicly available information about the alleged agreements to misrepresent Russia as a willing negotiator.
The Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma, Andrei Kartapolov, and the member of the Duma Defense Committee, Viktor Sobolev, rejected the joint Ukrainian-European statement of June 8, stating that the proposals were "unacceptable" for Russia and that Russia could achieve its military goals only by "reaching the western borders of Ukraine".
On June 8, NATO forces shot down a drone over Latvia for the first time after Russian electronic warfare systems diverted it into Latvian airspace. The Latvian National Armed Forces announced on June 8 that French Air Force fighter jets participating in the NATO Baltic Sea air patrol mission had shot down a "foreign drone" - possibly Ukrainian - that entered Latvian airspace due to Russian electronic warfare systems.
Latvian news source Delfi noted that this was the first time NATO had shot down a drone in Latvian airspace.
Russian electronic warfare systems had previously caused a Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle to enter Romanian territorial waters on June 5.
Russian officials used the June 5 incident to spread false Russian narratives claiming that Ukraine was the aggressor in the war started by Russia and to deflect blame from Moscow.
The Kremlin will likely continue to use similar incidents near or even within NATO borders to absolve Russia of blame for any accidental Russian drone strikes or false flag attacks against Romania or the Baltic states in the future.