The United States has warned that it will not be fooled by President Putin into “endless negotiations” over a ceasefire in Ukraine, as European governments criticised the Russian leader for dragging his feet.
Speaking at the end of a two-day Nato meeting in Brussels, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said Washington would “know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are.”
Rubio added: “If this is dragging things out, President Trump’s not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations.”
Ukrainian officials said on Friday that 14 people, including six children, had been killed in a Russian ballistic missile strike on the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Zelensky’s home town. More than 50 people were injured.
“A Russian missile on an ordinary city. Just on a street. In an area with residential buildings,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram. At least five buildings were damaged in the attack, he said.
At least four people were killed and 35 injured in a drone attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight, according to regional officials.
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Earlier in the day, Britain, France and Germany had accused Putin of stalling on a ceasefire deal in Ukraine and keeping up attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.
“Our judgment is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet. He could accept a ceasefire now, but he continues to bombard Ukraine, its civilian population, its energy supplies,” David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said at the Nato meeting. “We see, Vladimir Putin. We know what you’re doing.”
Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said: “Over the past three weeks, Russia has been flip-flopping, continuing its strikes on energy infrastructure, continuing its war crimes.
“There will at some point be a need for military capacity or reassurance, whenever peace is reached — and this is the reason why our army chiefs will be in Kyiv today in order to advance this work.”
The comments came as the head of Britain’s armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, arrived in Kyiv for talks with his French and Ukrainian counterparts over proposals to deploy peacekeeping troops.
Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, arrived in Kyiv by train alongside Thierry Burkhard, the French chief of staff.
The pair were due to meet Zelensky, as well Ukrainian military chiefs, to discuss the potential for stationing European soldiers in Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement, local media reported. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
The United States put forward a proposal for a full 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine last month, which Kyiv accepted but Russia turned down. The two sides have since agreed in principle to a limited cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure, but have accused each other of violating those terms in recent days.
A ceasefire is seen as the first step towards substantive talks to end hostilities permanently.
Rubio said that the US was “testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace”. He added: “Their actions — not their words, their actions — will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.”
Barrot said Moscow owed an answer to the United States, which had “worked very hard to come up with a mediation effort and a ceasefire proposal”.
“It has to be yes. It has to be no. It has to be a quick answer,” he said.
Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, criticised Putin for “playing for time by raising ever new demands” and said his talk of negotiations was “nothing but empty promises”.
Zelensky said on Thursday that a ceasefire was possible within weeks if the West leaned on Russia to comply. “The issue now is putting pressure on the Russians to get there,” he said, adding: “This applies especially to the hot phase of the war. A full ceasefire is the right step and one that Ukraine has agreed to and supports.”
Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy of Putin, held talks with members of President Trump’s administration in Washington on Thursday.
Afterwards, Dmitriev said there was a “positive dynamic” in relations between Russia and the US, although sticking points remained. “I think [with] the Trump administration, we are now in [a] realm of thinking about what is possible, what can really work, and how we can find a long-term solution,” he told CNN.
Trump said on Sunday that he was “very angry” and “pissed off” with Putin for criticising Zelensky, in a departure from the US president’s usually positive comments about the Russian leader. He also said he expected that he would speak to Putin this week.
Politico reported on Friday that the two could speak by telephone before the weekend, or immediately after it. NBC News, citing two administration officials, said on Thursday that no call had been scheduled and that Trump had been advised that “a phone call isn’t a good idea unless Putin has conveyed to the White House that he agrees to a full ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war”.
