TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The exchange of rhetoric between Russia and NATO has intensified after the negotiations between envoys of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin failed to reach an agreement.
NATO on Thursday responded to President Vladimir Putin's threat that Russia is "ready for war" with Europe, as reported by The Independent.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's spokesperson said that Putin's comments were "Kremlin claptrap," while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized that the alliance is "willing to do what it takes to protect our 1 billion people and secure our territory."
The escalating rhetoric comes as hopes for a peace deal mediated by the United States in Ukraine fade. On Wednesday, a planned meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and the US delegation was canceled, hours after President Donald Trump's team seemed to leave Moscow empty-handed.
Rutte stressed that Trump "is the only person in the whole world able to break the deadlock" over the war in Ukraine.
"Nato is a defensive alliance," Rutte said ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels. "Putin is convinced that he can hold out longer than us, but we're not going anywhere."
The progress of the peace talks seemed to stall after a five-hour meeting on Tuesday between Russian officials, including Kirill Dmitriev, President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The Kremlin denied rejecting the deal, claiming that the disagreement is part of a "normal working process and a search for compromise."
Witkoff and Kushner were supposed to fly to Brussels after Moscow to meet with the Ukrainian delegation, but instead returned to Washington on the same day.
Rutte hinted at the deadlock in his address on Wednesday, saying: "There is only one person in the whole world who is able to break the deadlock. That is the American president, Donald J Trump."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Witkoff had been in contact with the Ukrainian delegation after his talks in Moscow.
"There was contact between the head of the Ukrainian delegation and Mr Witkoff," Sybiha told reporters. "Representatives of the American delegation reported that, in their opinion, the talks in Moscow had a positive outcome and they invited the Ukrainian delegation to continue our talks in America in the near future."
It is unclear what this "positive outcome" is, which emerged after allegations that Trump's 28-point peace plan was a "Russian wishlist".
On Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper urged Putin to "end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace," and European leaders accused him of feigning interest in the negotiations.
However, Trump said his advisors believed that Vladimir Putin wants to end the war in Ukraine. Speaking in the Oval Office, he said, "Their impression was very strongly that he'd like to make a deal."
Later that evening, the European Commission proposed the unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets or international loans to raise 90 billion euros for Ukraine to cover its military needs and basic services that are struggling.
Nevertheless, the lack of progress in the peace plan seems to be another blow for Ukraine's diplomatic team. This comes after the main negotiator and Zelensky's right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, was forced to step down as chief of staff in a $100 million corruption scandal.
He was replaced by Rustem Umerov, a former defense minister of the country.
A few hours after Russia reportedly rejected the deal, the country launched a new drone attack, flooding Ukraine's air defense system with relentless bombings for five hours, deploying 430 drones and nearly 20 missiles.
The attack targeted the power grid, railway lines, and gas-fired power plants, as well as apartment buildings. At least eight people were killed in the attack, and the capital city, Kyiv, was plunged into darkness for most of the day.
Putin's provocative comments on the war in Europe came just hours before the negotiations between the US delegation and Russian officials began on Tuesday.
Europe continued to signal its support for Ukraine on Wednesday, while rejecting Putin's statement from the day before.
Cooper pledged an additional 10 million euros to Ukraine to fix its energy infrastructure after recent Russian attacks.
"Two presidents are seeking peace – President Trump and President Zelensky," she said in a meeting with NATO foreign ministers. "But so far, all we have seen from President Putin is an attempt to escalate war."
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