US presses Kiev into peace amid energy graft fallout: As it happened

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has reiterated Moscow’s readiness to negotiate, responding to a question about the call made by Erdogan to resume the Istanbul-format direct talk between Russia and Ukraine.  

“Moscow is open to negotiations. The pause that has arisen is, in fact, due to the Kiev regime’s reluctance to continue this dialogue,” Peskov told reporters.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to meet Zelensky in Ankara to further discuss the US peace plan after he had briefed Umerov on it, Axios has reported, citing sources. The meeting was ultimately called off since it “became clear” that Zelensky was “not interested in discussing the Trump plan” and had brought another draft “which Russia will never accept,” an unnamed US official told the outlet.

Following the meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Zelensky signaled readiness to resume peace negotiations with Russia, stating Ankara was ready to provide a platform for the talks.

“President Erdogan today proposed formats for the conversation, which I supported, and it is important for us that Türkiye is ready to provide the necessary platform. We are ready to work in any other meaningful formats that can yield results.” 

Kiev unilaterally walked away from Istanbul-format talks early in the conflict. This year, negotiations in Istanbul resumed, yet largely boiled down to prisoner swaps and other humanitarian exchanges, failing to provide a breakthrough on a permanent settlement.

There are no new behind-the-scenes agreements between Russia and the US on the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Moscow remains fully committed to the principles outlined during the Alaska summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, Peskov signaled when asked about Western media reports on the peace proposal purportedly conveyed to Kiev by Washington. 

“There are no new additions to what we call the ‘Spirit of Anchorage’,” Peskov told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubuin.

Following multiple Western media reports of a US delegation pressing Ukraine into accepting a peace deal, the FT’s Kiev correspondent posted what sources have told him are details of the plan. 

The “hasty US-Russia proposal” effectively amounts to “Ukraine’s capitulation” Christopher Miller wrote on X, claiming the scheme involves Kiev surrendering “certain weapons” and withdrawing from Donbass, as well as having its “army cut in half.” The proposals left Zelensky “displeased,” he added.

Ukraine is bound to end up with an “interim government” that will strike a peace deal with Russia to end the hostilities, Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod has said, speaking to a Ukrainian YouTube channel. Demands that Zelensky’s top aide Yermak be fired are about the survival and “self-preservation” of the Ukrainian leader, she suggested. 

“We’ll have an interim government, “anti-crisis,” “anti-corruption,” call it whatever you like, a government for several months that will ready the country for elections, conclude negotiations, and sign a peace agreement,” Skorokhod has stated.

Ukraine’s cabinet has tapped Lyudmila Slugak as interim Justice Minister to replace departed German Galushchenko, having previously served as his deputy with responsibility for “issues of Eurointegration.”

READ MORE: Ukrainian officials embezzled millions off Russian nuclear power plant – MP

Ukrainian officials embezzled at least $4.7 million in goods and services related to Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which is now controlled by Russia, Kiev lawmaker Vladimir Ariev has claimed. Moscow overtook the running of the plant, Europe’s largest, in March 2022, but that did not stop procurements for the facility through Ukraine’s Energoatom, the state-owned company at the epicenter of the ongoing graft scandal. 

Purchases listed as being for the plant continued until late August 2022.

The MP had previously suggested that even larger figures were involved, claiming Energoatom raked in some $9.5 million in procurements for ZNPP.

Faction leader of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, has downplayed an open letter being circulated by a fellow party member, dismissing it as a private opinion. The letter, backed by an unspecified number of the ruling party’s lawmakers, declared support for the opposition and demanded the dismissal of the government and all officials implicated in the corruption scandal.

“This is a statement by individual members of parliament, and they have the right to do so. However, I would like to point out that it should not be taken as the position of the entire faction. Since neither the faction nor the party has ever made such statements,” Arakhamia stated.

READ MORE: Top Zelensky aide could be fired over extortion scandal – media

Failure to oust Yermak will result in a political backlash from the notorious Zelensky ally with “a brutal purge of the political perimeter,” jailed Ukrainian opposition MP Alexander Dubinsky has warned.

Should Yermak stay in power then former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, widely regarded as one of the key figures behind the ongoing parliamentary push against Zelensky’s inner circle, is bound to end up behind bars, Dubinsky warned.

Renegade MPs with Zelensky’s Servant of the People party will be “easy to deal with,” and giving them a couple of ministerial positions would silence the dissent, the lawmaker suggested.