(Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Friday that it blames Ukraine for the fact that peace talks between the two countries are frozen, saying it was unclear what Kyiv wanted.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters: “The Ukrainian leadership constantly makes contradictory statements. This does not allow us to fully understand what the Ukrainian side wants.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier that he had tried repeatedly to organise a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, but that Russia did not appear to be ready yet for serious peace talks.
“There are things to discuss with the Russian leader. I’m not telling you that … our people are eager (for me) to talk to him, but we have to face the realities of what we are living through,” Zelenskiy said in an address to an Indonesian think tank.
“What do we want from this meeting? … We want our lives back… We want to reclaim the life of a sovereign country within its own territory,” he said.
The last known face-to-face peace negotiations were on March 29. Contacts continued remotely for a while but both sides now say they have stopped.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Kevin Liffey)
