Kremlin plays down media report of new efforts on Ukraine peace

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Wednesday played down an Axios report that the United States was working on a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine and said there were no new developments to announce since an August summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Trump's efforts to broker an end to the Ukraine war, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, have so far failed and he last month abruptly cancelled a planned summit with Putin in Budapest.

Trump clashed in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February, but has recently expressed disappointment and frustration with Putin, though he has repeatedly said he hopes to end the war.

When asked directly if it was true, as reported by Axios, that a conceptual discussion had led to new proposals on peace being put down on paper, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:

"No. So far there are no innovations on this that can be reported to you."

Asked to clarify if there were new developments when it came to Russian terms for peaceas set out by Putin in 2024, Peskov said that - apart from the discussions at the Anchorage summit - there were none.

Nearly four years since Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, Russian forces are grinding forwards and control about 19% of Ukraine - Moscow says four of its regions are now legally part of Russia, though Ukraine and Western European powers say they will never formally accept that.

Putin set out his core conditions in June 2024, demanding Kyiv renounce its plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and withdraw troops from the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine - which make up the Donbas - plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.